I haven't touched F.E.A.R. since I started this story, so I hope you'll be indulgent. This is 3 weeks overdue… We've got two chapters to go.
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Interval 11 – Carpe diem
All he had ever seen of his brother were mere flashes and blurred visions, of a self-reliant bastard, who never respected his older brother or showed fear, even when he faced death. No, he did not face death; he leaped into it, embraced it. And yet, he was alive.
Both her sons had survived the unimaginable. Alma smiled, happily, but, like a harbinger of death, her broken and distorted features and the fetid stench that hung around her like a tangible mass did nothing to improve the overall gloominess of her presence.
Where few true memories of Paxton Fettel existed, there had been little or no contact with Alma Wade. But the rotting scent clung to him, the smell that still hung around the flattened area in Auburn's abandoned industrial district. In the Vault, or what remained of it. Nothing, not even the sweetest flowers in her hair, in his dreams, in his wildest fantasies for a normal life, nothing could erase that smell. It was like an infection, like an invading presence permeating his every pore.
The hands that held the assault rifle did not quiver.
He felt the crispness of his uniform, the weight of his boots, the comforting tightness of the helmet around his head.
"You imagine yourself a superhero, unbeatable and indestructible. But you are nothing but a little boy…" Her voice quivered and nearly died. "A little boy in a man's body. Oh, baby, what have they done to you?"
To make you find solace in these empty shells, and not in your own mother?
She took one step forward. The watery joints of her knees shook and knocked against each other like wind chimes. The intentions were clearly there; for a moment, she had seemed nearly welcoming.
Caught in the steps of a morbid dance, Quentin took a step back. His breaths were noisy and his ribs hurt as though he were out of breath, out of shape, a rabbit chased from his refuge, pursued across the desert.
The rotted carcass extended two painfully thin, bloody limbs, hands as dying branches. The discolored, cracked lips stirred. "Come, Quentin."
With me.
His eyes closed. He fitted his mouth around the word.
"No."
He repeated it, eyes screwed shut, as he shot Alma, again and again, every jab of recoil as a bullet in his own chest, until giblets of flesh tore from her bones and clattered away into the dark surrounding them.
-
There was a sleepy mumble in the dark and dampness of the hotwired car.
"Alice did taste the best. Hmm."
Quentin jerked awake. Paxton shook his head and stared, deadpan, at the road.
"I have been walking for you," he said at last, as Quentin ran a hand over his sweat-covered features and through his damp hair. He shifted his weight on the seat and searing pain shot through his entire body.
"My fucking leg…" Quentin fell back, his breath a hiss, his teeth clenched, his muscles taut against the pain.
"Neither swearing nor whining will ease the pain," Paxton muttered.
Quentin grunted, sweat beading on his brow. The knife wound was minor; however, he did not relish the idea of touching the entry wound, an irregular trail of pain drawn into flesh by the bullet. The raw skin around the injuries, slick with blood, seemed rubbery and alien.
The car skidded to a stop. He heard rustling. "Here." A wad of tissues was thrust into view. He pressed them against the bloody skin as hard as he could, winced and looked around. The structure in the backseat caught his eye. It was a little strap-on toddler seat. Empty. Quentin felt suddenly sick as the car lurched forward again.
"The woman. You killed her."
"Carpe diem, brother," Paxton said brightly, driving one-handed.
Quentin turned his eyes and mind away.
"Where are we going?" he muttered.
Paxton managed an insolent smirk. "I really miss Alma; don't you?"
The former F.E.A.R. Point Man leaned back in his seat; before he could ask himself what hilarity existed in the situation, a hiss of laughter escaped him and went largely unnoticed. The car turned onto a quiet, residential street and pulled to a stop in front of a large, comfortable-looking home, its silent windows dark, vacant. Two trash cans stood near the driveway and a small puddle of coolant betrayed the recent presence of a vehicle on the premises.
The tissues had been soaked through during the first few seconds and were now clogged heavily with blood. Quentin threw them aside and staggered out of the vehicle.
"What will you do?" asked Paxton, following him out to the sidewalk. Somehow Paxton had managed to trigger the trunk release, and the boot of the car gaped at the two brothers. "How do you plan to murder your mother?"
Quentin did not answer; he tore off a strip of his shirt and tied it clumsily around his left leg.
Paxton leaned on a nearby fence and sneered. "You should be grateful to be alive. Alma saved you. After the explosion…"
A blow caught Paxton and drove him to the ground in a heap. He was caught unawares by his brother's sudden anger, but the most surprised of the two was Quentin himself.
Paxton spat contemptuously. The fleck of blood hit the ground. "How far are you willing to go for your… people?"
Quentin noticed movement in the surrounding darkness beyond the glow of the streetlamps. The Replica Soldiers had been trained for stealth, but the constant hunger wearing down their defences and Quentin's finely attuned senses made them visible to him.
"You think you can control them?" Fettel hissed, a trickle of blood running from his mouth, slipping over the dried crusts of his victims. As Quentin turned, Paxton wiped the blood from his face and licked it off his knuckles, never taking his eyes off his brother. A nervous snigger escaped the second prototype as he stood. "They answer to me. I am their leader. Always have been, always will be. You'll never have them, even if you always were Alma's favourite."
The roundhouse kick caught Paxton on the chin. As he went down, his head grazed the top of the trash can, sending debris raining down on the driveway.
Quentin walked up to where Paxton lay, but his brother was ready. As hands fastened themselves to his shirt and hoisted him upright, Paxton's head collided with Quentin's and he stabbed at his brother's bullet wound with a piece of broken plastic forgotten on the ground. Quentin screamed in pain, but he found a stranglehold on Paxton and refused to let go.
He wrestled Paxton to the open trunk and slammed the cover down on his brother's head with as much force as he could muster. The second prototype dropped down to the sullied ground like a broken toy.
-
Jin stared up from her cold coffee as Betters entered the room. Since Quentin had suddenly dropped from the screen of the tracker, she had fought the exhaustion of pain and sleeplessness, hoping for the slim chance of Quentin's survival and throwing in a few prayers to the deities she was familiar with to strengthen his odds.
"The tracker just picked up his location."
"Where is he? Do you think he's alright?" Jin could hear the childish eagerness in her voice and wanted to laugh at herself.
"He's been on the move, as it turns out." Betters didn't say another word. He lay the small device down on the table in front of her and let the lit screen do the talking.
Jin stared down at the pulsing red dot and at the coordinates until realization registered on her face.
"The old Wade house."
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He was in that cell, that all-too familiar cell. The harsh light glared down at him.
It was the sobbing that caught his attention. In the corner, under the bed, with its rock-hard mattress, a small figure lay huddled, in the only pool of shadow in the room. Blood spread like a spider over the cold tiles.
He looked about the room listlessly. He wanted to call for help, but there was no help to summon. The door was locked, and only darkness lay beyond the meshed window.
Overcome by curiosity and pity, he stepped closer – whether the goal was to save the boy or end his misery, he was not certain – and as he got closer and got a good look at the child's face, he realized that the boy was him.
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He awoke in a room swimming in inky shadows, pangs of empty pain running through his leg. Feeling the floor under him and the empty space around him, he stood and swayed slightly while what blood he had left bypassed his wound and ran back to his brain. His head brushed a thin chain. As he tugged it, the room came into the dull focus of the single bulb hanging from the ceiling.
He was in someone's basement. Clutter lay in heaps in parts of the room, while boxes were stacked ceiling high in a corner, dust collected like frosting on everything within sight.
"Quentin."
He turned with a startled shout. Batted by his sudden movement, the light bulb swung and shook wildly, throwing moving shadows across the room. He panted, staring into the flickering darkness, the rush of adrenalin-pumped fear receding.
He put out his hand to stop the light bulb. The glass seared his fingers, and he drew his hand back to his body with a gasp of pain. The pain did not go away; it intensified, growing until he thought the palm of his hand was about to peel off and flake away.
It was then that a flicker of movement drew his eye. His leg, his hand, they were forgotten. His back straightened with a creak, then he was staring into Alma's eyes, or what eyes he could see through the tangled curtain of her hair.
"You are not alone anymore. We've got each other now." She moved closer. "Oh, what have they done to you, sweetheart?"
There were tears in her eyes. A surprising wind whipped her hair. Quentin braced himself for the stench he knew would come, but it did not. The rest of her face was revealed to him, the soft, pale face turned to him, the wafer-thin skin, the delicate features, the fine eyebrows and deep eyes. She seemed happy, and pained by her son's injuries. Quentin longed to move, to run away, but he was frozen.
He feared and hated Alma, but he had never known a mother's love and a new yearning had been growing in him since Auburn, this stew of emotions simmering toward an outcome he knew to be inevitable.
Her voice entered his ear and his mind, a sibilant hiss lowering his defenses. All the hate he harbored, the stillness his training enforced, it was all gone.
"Don't hold back…"
He closed his eyes, leaned forward and embraced darkness.
"No more of this. Mommy's here."
-
Tires grinding in the wake of a tight turn, Betters' car raced down the street and ground to a stop in front of the darkened house. Trash was strewn across the driveway; a small pool of dark liquid had been left under the open trunk of a poorly-parked car. Betters felt a chill creep up his spine as he stared up into the jagged face of the building. This was where it had all started. This was the home of a stereotypical "mad scientist", an epitome, in fact, whose genius had led an entire family, an entire company, an entire town to destruction.
"Jin, be careful," he said, laying a cautionary hand on Jin's shoulder as the young operative opened the door and prepared to lift herself out of the car. He hated the role he played, which relegated him to the position of observer, never to leap into the fray, to be a hero.
"You don't know who he is."
The young woman was silent. In the shadows of the car, he saw her look at his face for a precious few moments, bright eyes studying him, then she was gone.
-
"Read me another story, please? Please? Please?"
The gentle light on his eyelids and the insistent pleas, so close to his ear, woke him.
"Oh, stop looking at me like that. Your eyes are melting me like ice cream. Okay, just one more story. Just one."
He lay on the soft bed, amongst the cloud-like pillows. Swaddled in plushy flannel pajamas, Paxton was snuggled next to Alma. Quentin crawled forward on his elbows, moving up next to Alma, who tousled his hair playfully.
"Morning, sleepyhead." Alma turned to Paxton. "Another Shakespeare? But they're so long…" She suddenly held a book in one hand.
"Come on, Mommy, you promised!"
"Oh, alright," Alma conceded. "We've got all the time in the world."
"Quentin! Where are you?"
Fear and embarrassment tightened his features. They were back in the basement. The light flickered dangerously. Jin was somewhere in the house. Alma's eyes grew cold, and then an expression of helplessness came over her face.
"My little baby's growing up," she mouthed quietly, disappointed. "We don't need her, Quentin."
"Quentin?"
Dragging her leg, Jin hobbled down the unlit corridor. The light coming from the basement reached her. Gritting her teeth, she followed the glow blindly, ignoring the pain and the knowledge that whatever she was about to find was not going to be pleasant.
Jin missed the top step, rolling down the stairs in a clip-clatter of bruises and scrapes. She struggled to her feet, took a step forward, finally got a good look of the room and stopped, petrified. She watched in horror as Quentin reached out and gripped his mother in a tight embrace.
"Quentin!" Jin screamed.
Alma turned, faced Jin. Her hair hung like tangled ropes across her face; her skeletal body standing like gnarled, gaunt sticks in the harsh, fluorescent, bluish light; a grin spread, cracked, bleeding, like a cut, blood red, crimson on ashen lips, across her face, four decades of suffering, of planning, of waiting. Quentin's face was blank; he looked but did not see.
Shadows swarmed in the room and became wraiths, the members of Armacham Technology Corporation's formerly illustrious army.
Alma smiled, Alma smiled a sad smile, an ugly, ironic, cruel, vengeful smile.
"Too late."
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As you probably know by now, I absolutely love reviews. So thank you so very much for your kind words. They are very encouraging and are the driving force behind this fan fiction; this chapter wouldn't be here without your help and support. And please, don't forget to review this chapter. It really helps.