The battle of Evermore
A Revolution fic: Bass Monroe/Charlie Matheson, Charloe; Blackout AU set just after S2.
A Revo Halloween fic. Since the surge flashed like some crazy storm across the world there were places that people didn't go to anymore, not if they were smart, not even the kids and crazy teens. Evermore hospital in Willoughby was one of those places. Bad things seemed to happen there at Halloween and Charlie decides that enough is enough, she is going to find out what it is and stop it, even if she has to do it alone.
Author's note:
Hi there, and thanks so much for dropping by. I still love Bass and Charlie, I also love halloween, and this story wanted out. The title is from a song by Led Zeppelin.
Take care and stay safe, Magpie
With the afternoon sun hot on her back, and the stone hot on her front, Charlie leaned against the wall by the broken, ornate iron gates and felt in her pack for her precious binoculars, finding them by feel and lifting them to her eyes.
Through the glasses, rising behind a weedy but still gracefully curved crushed gravel driveway, Willoughby's abandoned Evermore mental hospital seemed innocent enough. Modelled on the Governor's mansion and originally built as a private residence with oil money that ran out in the great depression, the grand, white mansion was surrounded by wide lawns long gone to wild grasses and overgrown, tangled woods. It looked quiet, even peaceful, but she'd heard different, and the stories were bad enough that she'd decided someone had to do something.
Her lips tightened. She'd turned out to be the someone. Of course.
Miles and her mom were way too busy playing happy marriages to bother about 'more weird crap', Aaron and Priscilla ditto though they'd been more polite. And Monroe? She frowned. Monroe seemed to be happy spending his time kicking back doing nothing but drinking too much whiskey, breeding fancy horses and training local kids to use swords. He'd laughed at her when she'd asked him to back her up on a hunt for whatever the hell in this house was responsible for turning nice, ordinary people into homicidal maniacs.
Moron.
She'd thought he'd come along for the ride, just for old times sake. They'd been partners during the war, kind of, fighting together, watching each others backs. They'd been a good team. But then once the fighting stopped things changed between them, got tense. He started avoiding her whenever he could, making sure he only came round when Miles was home and when he did come round or she met him in the street or a bar she didn't know what to say either.
It was like neither of them knew what was supposed to happen next.
She knew what she wanted though, and with anyone else she'd be happy to be the one to start things, but with him it was different. Complicated.
Damn it.
Frustration and disappointment narrowed her eyes and made it hard to concentrate. Monroe was a total jerk, but that didn't mean he could sit on his ass when there were things to be done, battles to be fought.
Like this one.
She sucked in a deep breath, shoved Monroe to the back of her mind and focused on the mission. First, she needed a way in.
The house was big and white and symmetrical with thick pillars along the front facade, the rest of the house stretching behind in a row of two storey blocks. The main, double door at the front was at the centre of a wide verandah with a flight of elegant steps leading up to it from the drive. Sometime since last halloween, the doors had been boarded up and a big sign in black paint saying 'Keep out' nailed across them.
Charlie shrugged, doors were overrated, she could use a window, back door or the roof if she had to.
The lowering sun made the faded white walls of the big house glow. It didn't look like horrible things had happened there.
But they had.
Since the surge flashed like some crazy storm across the world there were places that people didn't go to anymore, not if they were smart, not even the kids and crazy teens. The old hospital in Willoughby was one of those places but usually no one talked about it, except at Halloween when the stories came around again.
Like the one about Neil Brady and his young family who'd moved there on October 29th the first year after the surge hoping to bring the old place back to life. Instead, Neil had gone batshit crazy and killed his wife and four kids on Halloween, hanging their bodies on butcher hooks in the big cellar before turning himself in saying something in the house told him to do it.
Charlie had met Neil when they first got to Willoughby after the Tower. He'd seemed like a nice guy, not a killer, but then you never knew.
The following year, late October, the Texas Rangers opted to use the hospital as a training centre for new recruits. The first group had been there for a bit less than a week when the fourteen recruits, their sergeant, the cook and housekeeper were found by their captain when he arrived for a surprise inspection at dawn on November first, their heads neatly arranged in the shape of a star on the lawns in front of the house.
The bodies belonging to the heads had never been found.
The year after that, last year, a developer from Austin came along and turned the place into a hotel. It took him and his team a few months to get it happening, but through August, September and most of October the place was party central for rich types from the capital, even while the war was going on. Then, at the Halloween ball, something happened. No one was really sure what, but the next morning when the milk delivery service turned up, bodies were everywhere and the flies were swarming and so bloated with blood it was like walking through red rain. The milkman said it looked like people had just started eating each other.
After that, the house was left alone and people in Willoughby tried to forget it was there. It was like the hospital disappeared into thin air for most of the year, coming back in late October bringing nightmares with it.
She sniffed. Not this time. Tonight was Halloween and she was going to find out what the hell was going on, and if she had to it alone, well she'd been there and done that before. To hell with Miles, and to hell with Monroe too. She kicked the wall, forgetting she had her moccasins on in case she had to climb, not her heavy boots and bit back a yell of anguish as her big toe hit the stones.
Ow. Crap.
Hopping a little, foot cradled against her other calf, she pulled herself together and focused on back on business, checking out the big sash windows that flanked the doors.
Looked like the one on the far left was open just a crack, but that was all she needed.
Ok then.
She decided to walk down the drive, there was no reason to hide after all and the only real cover available would mean going right around the perimeter by the wall, and she'd still have to cut across the lawns to get to the house at the closest point. But as she got closer the sounds of her feet on the gravel seemed to get louder and louder, each step exploding into air that was suddenly hushed and still and she had to make herself keep walking.
Maybe it was because she knew the stories about the house, but it felt as though the building was watching her, the big windows like eyes. She shook the feeling off but unclipped the knife on her belt and notched an arrow into her bow anyway.
After what seemed like forever, she reached the house and with nerves jangling and every sense alert, Charlie climbed the broad, shallow, steps onto the porch. The space was cool and full of shadows under the stone balcony with skeletal vines hanging from above, mostly dead, their fallen leaves crisp and crackling underfoot. She walked along the dusty flagstones to the end window, keeping it casual, trying to ignore the growing tension in her belly, the tightness in her throat, her knuckles white on her bow.
When she got to it, there were old blood stains on the bottom of the wooden frame, a handprint, cracked but still clear, as if someone had leaned against it, their hand covered in blood. It was a stark reminder of what had happened last halloween and when she looked, there were more patches of blood along the wall towards the corner, smeared as though someone had been dragged along.
Charlie felt sick to her stomach but swallowed it down. This…thing…had to be stopped.
She turned back to the window. The sash was open a few inches at the bottom and she bent over to peer inside, making sure not to touch the bloody print as she pushed aside the remains of a heavy, musty lace curtain.
There was enough light for her to tell that the room was large, with high, ornate ceilings and elegant columns set around the walls, a few low tables and easy chairs set up in groups scattered over the chequerboard floor, glasses, cups and plates still in place and a few books and magazines lying open as if whoever had been reading them was coming back.
There were no bodies though, they'd been removed after the Ball and it didn't look like anything as terrible as a massacre had happened in there, if you forgot about the blood on the window. But looks could be deceiving, she knew that for sure.
She shrugged and got up, no point wasting more daylight. Putting her bow down, she put both hands on the window frame and lifted. To her surprise, the window slid open with only the slightest complaint.
Almost as if it wanted her to come in.
Ok. She picked up her bow again, and used the tip to push the curtain aside.
Time to get the party started
….
Back up by the gate, a booted foot sent up puffs of gravel dust as Monroe took a step towards the house, watching her through his binoculars.
Behind him, his horse snickered softly.
'Hey, don't be so judgemental, Benny,' Monroe glanced over his shoulder, 'I don't believe all the crap about this place, but I thought I'd better keep an eye on her just in case.' His lips curved in a grin as he put the glasses to his eyes again, 'although I gotta admit, it's not exactly a hardship, I could watch her all day, in fact I've been wishing I could do a lot more than that for a long time now, just don't know how to make it happen.'
Benny snorted and tossed his head.
The grin turned rueful. 'I know, I know. I'm crazy to even think about it. She's way out of my league.' He was quiet for a moment, intent on what he was watching. 'Damn she's got a great ass…and a genius for finding trouble too and with Miles out of the game I guess it's up to me to make sure she gets home in one piece.' He kept watching as Charlie wriggled in through the window and disappeared, then turned back to the horse and hauled his pack out of the saddle bags. 'I'd better get down there. If I'm not back in a couple hours, go home, ok?'
The big bay ignored him this time, more interested in picking at the lush patches of grass by the wall.
'I guess I'll take that as a yes.' Monroe gave the big hindquarters a pat, shouldered his rifle and headed down the drive.
…
AN: Hi, hope you're enjoying this so far. I wanted to have the whole story up for Halloween, but just didn't have time. The second (and I think final) part will be up as soon as I can tidy it up. Cheers, Magpie xx