And the bloodshed begins… I've never written horror before so tell me what I need to improve upon.
I don't own Sky High.
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It was late, midnight, about seven hours after when the buses should have arrived at camp and so far not a single report of a single incident or mishap. No one had been arrested; her phone was dead silent all evening and night. With a blissful sigh Susan powers shut off her light and locked the door behind her for the weekend. Minutes after her car made it out of the garage her phone on her school desk rang
"Hi. You've Reached Susan Powers' office. I'm not currently available to please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible."
"Susan? I'm afraid I have some bad news, one of your buses never made it. We searched the surrounding areas but we can't find the bus, nor any of the missing students… please call me back as soon as possible." The phone rang again, oblivious to the owner's absence.
Again the message chimed of the school matriarch's non-availability.
"Mrs. Powers? This is General Hatfield of the US Armed Forces. I'm sorry to be calling you so late but I had just received the report not even five minutes ago. The Super Villain Pakkul has escaped his confinement. While our Forces were firing at him to try and bring him down and subdue him again, it seems that one of missals was lost, sadly in the vicinity of where your school buses where said to be traveling, Upon searching the area we found one of your buses had in fact been shot down my accident. The good news is it seems that there were no bodies on the bus, so possibly they all survived and fled into the forest for cover. For security purposes we've cleared the site, and I have sent men to go look in the forest for any lost kids. But I urge you to assemble a group of supers and begin looking yourself; the sooner we find those kids the better for all parties involved."
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Erin groaned as she slid in and out of consciousness, whatever warm thing she had landed on was starting to shift and gasp.
"Oh fuck…" Came from somewhere from her left.
"Hey you? You alright?" The warm thing she landed on spoke.
"Mmmmm Mm." Erin groaned as she forced her lax muscles to work. Her hand went onto his chest… "Oh… sorry." She muttered trying to get off of him, but found the bus was turned on its side.
"Shit what happened?" Lash asked, detangling himself from the still out of it Stacy.
"Is everyone alright?" Came the frantic Stronghold, waking up the rest of the sidekicks. A whimper came from the purple girl as she rolled off her arm, the odd angle the bones had snapped at showed.
"Oh, Magenta… we're going to have to set that… Does anyone have healing abilities?" Layla called, leaning up from her Boyfriend. "OH MY GOD!" she shrieked as she looked to the front of the bus. Whatever had hit the bus has shredded the front and middle of the bus. The Bus Driver sat; pinned in place by his seatbelt… his head was lodged in the window facing the students, a look of terror frozen on his face. Students lay mangled and bleeding all over the place, one girl tried to get up, but fell over, her leg remaining in her previous position. She died a moment later gasping and crying as the blood loss claimed her. Another boy had a large piece of metal shoved right through him, his glasses askew and blood and spit trickled out of his opened mouth. The crushed remains of another student's head slowly slid down off the ceiling, the chunks of brain left sticky pinkish trails as it slid and rolled down to the side/floor of the bus. A few groans answered her from the middle of the bus.
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Way to the front a familiar red head adjusted his glasses. His ears rang from the concussion he received. Behind him, unnoticed, the bus tore away by an invisible force. A man, with long pin straight black hair and blood red war paint landed behind the deaf boy. His murderous intent whipped around him in a visible aura.
"LARRY!!" Will shouted as everyone started to move to get away from the man.
"Hi guys!" Larry waved. "I can't hear you right now! I think I hit my head too hard!" He called out oblivious to the danger he was about to be in. A quick wet ripping sound preceded the draining of color from his face... Larry looked down at the hand shoved through his chest, his still beating heart held within the palm of the hand. The hand shot back with a messy spray of blood. The man brought the heart to his mouth and bit into the now still organ. The still alive and conscious members of the group looked on in disgust as he chewed the heart finally swallowing the last mouthful. Larry lay at the man's feet, dead, the remaining blood in his body creating a red puddle at the man's bare feet.
"My name is Pakkul, The Warrior God King of the People of the Sun. it had been so long since I have hunted… won't you provide me sport?" He asked. His handsome face was smeared with Larry's blood.
"Take your belongings and run…" He urged. No body needed to be told twice.
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Erin clutched her bags with a white knuckled grip as she came to a panting halt; they were easily miles from where the bus lay.
"Oh god… what the fuck? Who the fuck is this Pakkul?" She panted as her sister landed next to her. Will leaned against a tree, doubling over, swallowing the urge to throw up the junk food he had eaten on the bus ride there. Lash collapsed onto the floor of the clearing they had taken shelter in.
"Pakkul… one of the very first Super Villains. You don't even learn of this guy till senior year, he was the ruler of the Aztecs some three thousand years ago. He sold his soul to a god of the underworld for immortality, and consumed the flesh of his enemies and victims to keep his immortality. Then all of the families of the people he ate ganged up and locked him away. But he escaped, centuries later, and discovered that if he ate Supers he would gain their powers and could conquer the world." The Former villain in training said from his place on the ground.
"Last time he was locked away was like decades ago, and all of the supers died during the effort." Stacy added sitting down before she passed out
"S-s-so you mean we have like a cannibalistic god after us for our powers?" A girl squeaked. Erin looked around at the group; there were about fifteen kids in all. Some seriously hurt others terrified shitless, not a single person was alright.
"What's your name?" Lash asked.
"Samantha." She squeaked
"What are your powers?"
"I-I-I turn into a ball." The Rubber boy got up from his spot on the ground and ran an long arm around the terrified Junior.
"Well Samantha who turns into a ball. To answer your question honestly… we're all dead. There's no way we can survive… it's just a question of who goes first." Lash said sliding around her, his fingers never leaving her shoulders till he left his encircling to hang around his buddy Speed. Samantha burst into tears.
"He he he's riiiiighht!" she sobbed. Layla went over to the girl and wrapped her in a big green hug.
"Sh shh… no he's not. We'll make it just fine. After all we're close to the camp… we'll make it there and be safe." Layla comforted the distraught girl.
"No we won't." Magenta said from getting her arm splinted by Ethan. "We aren't five miles, or even fifteen miles from the camp, we're a hundred and fifty. And even if we were close, he eats supers for their powers… we cannot lead him to the camp for him to feast on the rest of our class. WE won't survive this… so our best bet is to be sacrifices and lead him far far far away from the camp." Magenta clenched her teeth as Ethan gave a particularly painful shove to her broken arm, snapping it back into a straight line before setting it with the emergency kit he brought. No one said a word as they all let this settle in.
"There's got to be a source of his powers, something that keeps him alive. I bet he doesn't go far without it, so if we can find where he left it in this forest, or get it from him, we could stop him." Ethan spoke up. Lash and Speed snorted.
"Yeah you do that Sidekick… but remember, we're not heroes, we'll tag along though." Speed said haughtily. For the most part people just ignored him.
"We should set up camp here, there no point running around in the dark." Warren interjected his thoughts into the tense silence. Like he was god, all of the people in the clearing followed his word and within forty minutes a large campsite was resurrected. Inside the ring of bed sheet tents someone had line a large circle of logs around a roughly built bonfire pit. Warren, knowing the thick trees would block any light or smoke, courtesy of Layla, lit the pit into a blaze and someone had thought to play music from somewhere. The last remains of all the junk food the group had salvaged from all of the bags they could carry fed the group well. And someone had broke out their stash of illegally obtained alcohol. But for all of the merriment of the setting no one spoke. And someone had dumped out a drink in honor of Larry… the first victim… of that fact everyone was sure.
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Erin woke from her bubble and popped it. Around her other super teens were facing the morning. There was no food left. Layla had either grown or gathered berries and other plants safe to eat. And people where snacking on berries for the morning. A water manipulator had pulled fresh water out of the ground so people had clean water to wash with or drink. The many with hangovers lounged around in the shade.
Erin sat in the shade next to Warren, rocking back and forth as she dealt with her thoughts.
"We're going to have to move soon." Warren spoke. Erin flicked her pale grey eyes to him.
"Yeah." Stacy wandered over to the shade the two were under.
"How you holding up?" She asked her baby sister.
"…" Erin didn't know how to respond to that. Stacy sighed and rubbed her sister's back gently.
"Well don't fall apart just yet kay? We need someone to keep their wits about them." She muttered. Stacy left her sister alone to go help take down the tents. Moments later Will came up and told the two they were moving south, away from the camp. The two got up and left with the group.
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The quiet was unnerving for such a large group. Will and Layla took up the front moving boulders and having trees bend out of the way for the large group.
"Why are we leaving such an obvious trail?" Samantha whimpered, on the verge of hysteria.
"We want Pakkul to follow us. We cannot endanger the people at camp." Zack said, his arm wrapped around Magenta's waist.
"I don't want to die!" She broke down. Erin felt her own throat lump up painfully as she fought to repress her own tears.
"No one wants to, you silly cow." She choked out, looking dead ahead refusing to allow the tears to fall. Samantha walked along side the group, crying the tears others refused to let loose.
"Death is inevitable of the weak. Only the strong can survive… and they become stronger by feasting on the weak. So don't despair, your death shall make me stronger." A smooth voice came from behind the group. Hair stood on end as slowly the group turned around to see Pakkul.
"You're looking old." Lash lied, trying to not let him know he had to lock his knees to keep them from knocking in terror. A sour odor let the group know someone had pissed their pants. Pakkul frowned and without another word dashed forward.
People screamed as within a heartbeat the Aztec had torn Samantha open and started ripping her internal organs out and eating them in a vile display as her blood sprayed out coating him and the surrounding area. Blood and intestines oozed from his mouth down his front. As he distracted himself by eating the poor sidekick's remains the rest of the group took the chance and fled.
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Once the group had been able to stop running Erin leaned over and puked up the berries in her stomach, she nearly started loosing her stomach acid at the reddish hue the vomit was against the grassy forest floor. Many others were copying her actions as this was the first time some of the members of the group had seen the specific act of cannibalism. Stacy was clutching her head, in agony as the last thought of Samantha echoed in her head. Lash was the only one conscious enough to aid the poor psychic. He held her to his frame as she sobbed and tore at her blonde hair, her blue eyes squeezed shut.
"Oh god… oh god! Why? Why us? What did we do to deserve this?" She whimpered… At first Erin thought her sister was having a bout of religious questioning, which was odd because Stacy wasn't religious, but then the senior kept repeating that phrase over and over it dawned on Erin… that was Samantha's last thoughts. A waved of nausea hit Erin again causing her to double over and fall to the ground.
"We need to keep moving… he knew where we were… we need to make the trail harder to follow… his thoughts… fuck… his thoughts were unshielded, he didn't know I was a psychic… he was following us… we need to make it harder for him to find us… he doesn't even know about the camp…" Stacy started to ramble as she turned from Lash. Will wiped the vomit from his mouth and nodded. Erin shouldered her bags better, grateful that she had opted instead to buy the large, dorky looking, trek pack that allowed one to attach bags onto it, as apposed to the bags one had to carry. The large backpack like object sat on her back quite comfortably and held all of her affect quite securely. She was one of the few people who still had all of her things
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The group moved quietly through the forest, till late ate evening, long after the sun went down. The chill of the forest's night forced them to stop for the night. This time a fire just barely big enough for everyone, and still with extra trees grown to keep the smoke and light from escaping the clearing, was built and maintained. A few of the group dared to venture outside and brought back rabbits and birds for the group. Layla was again with her offerings of edible nuts berries and plants. A stream nearby let everyone bathe and drink to their hearts content as Melissa, the girl who could manipulate water, assured people it was clean and safe. Erin created a bubble around the smoke, with nothing left to do other than play with her powers, and condense the smoke down into a small marble of charcoal. She repeated this till she had a large pile around her feet.
"There a purpose to that?" Warren asked watching her create a little fortress of soot balls, not that it was particularly amusing to watch, but it held his attention because there was nothing else to notice… all of his books had been left on the bus or dropped when fleeing Pakkul.
"Nothing else to do… I feel… really useless…" She muttered.
"Ah… well at least you have all of your stuff… I dropped everything that wasn't in my backpack." Erin winced. A lot of people had nothing now.
"Er… I uhm… don't think I'm coming on to you like one of your pathetic fan girls… which thank god they're not here… But… it's going to rain tonight… and I can make extra bubbles… no problem." Warren shot her an appreciative smile.
"What was that about being useless?"
"Oh Shut up." Erin smiled an empty smile of one who had seen far too much, and had far more to see before her days were done.
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And END OF CHAPTER!!
Sigh, I spoil you guys soooo much. This chapter wasn't supposed to be out till next friday but... I couldn't resist posting, this is my first time writing something like this and I'm anxious to see your reactions
Remember to review!!