So there we stood, a nice little crowd of gawking tourists, if ya like. "Ladeez and gennelmen! Over here, the seven-foot iron spikes! Watch your step little girl, them things're sharp! And over there the local god! Don't worry, it's dead now. I think." You can just imagine the theme park they could make of it, can't ya? Tasteless? Sure, but when's that ever stopped folks doing a thing to make cash?
So that was us there, in the dark and cold, with a dead monster at our feet and one hell of a lot of ammo in front of us. How that little kid had been carrying all that, I dunno, but there it was. Kate, meanwhile, seemed to be havin a bit of… uh… trouble, getting to grips with things. She kept looking around the place, feverish and quick, like she was expecting something to jump outta the walls or something. I dunno, though, the place felt kinda peaceful to me, sorta quiet and finished. In the dark and cool, I coulda stayed there a long while, just recovering from everything. I don't think I've ever felt quite as at peace as I did there, in the cool shadows and the warm light. Kate, though, was really twitchy. Scratching nervously at herself, she flicked her head back and forth, sometimes shaking her head or knocking a stray hair back, like she thought she could… I dunno, swat away a bothersome thought or some such.
It didn't work, though. Whatever was bothering her wouldn't let her alone, and she broke down her calm veneer, beginning to talk, but breaking down to a shriek:
"What... What the hell was all that? What's going on? Where are we? There's not supposed to... why's there a church here? What's this thing we're standing in? AND JUST WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!"
I stepped forward, tried to calm her. Not a hug, you understand, she'd probably feel that a little too… close for comfort. Don't wanna bother a girl like that. Plus which, she still had that gun and the trigger-happiness. So I just went to put a hand on her shoulder, nice and easy-like. Tried to calm her with a calm voice:
"Easy, Kate. Take it easy."
Calming wasn't an option, looked like. She whirled round the instant she felt my hand, and I'll swear she almost blew my fucking head clean off. But she saw it was me and blinked, like she was trying to reset her thoughts. When she opened her eyes again, though, she was looking a little more down, and saw the monster at our feet, too. That didn't help her state of mind. She gasped and jumped back, looking like she was gonna start screaming again.
"Just… take a breath, ok?" I said to her, " I know none of this makes sense, but we gotta keep cool, ok? Besides," and here I nodded to Angela, who was sat on the dirt floor looking round like some six year old on her first cannabis trip, "Besides, you're gonna scare the kid."
Finally Kate lowered the gun, frowning at me. But at least she didn't seem so trigger-happy anymore, so I counted that a blessing. Best to leave her to it, I figured, and wandered off to investigate the room we were in, as much to let her get back on balance as to actually find out what was going on. The spikes around the room, now, that was some kinda weird. I dunno where to begin explaining it properly. They were set up so that anything facing the 'god', or where the 'god' had been standing with its back to the wall, woulda been facing the 'god' with their back and sides to the spikes. No escape. What was that place? Even now I catch myself thinking about it, and that musta been at least a day ago, probably more. Like I said, though, time's weird here. Walkin up to the Amusement park took me, I thought, about half an hour, but comparing notes later with Kate I found that I had turned up there about an hour after leaving the mall, going by her time and experiences. If I can trust her, that is.
Anyway, those spikes were just too weird to be real, I thought, but I didn't wanna test that theory too hard. Anything that sharp could do a guy some nasty damage if he tested them with his bare hands. A 'god' that holds its people hostage like that would be capable of about anything, I thought, so I just tapped at the things with my gun. It made a weird metallic sound when struck, like a ting! kinda noise. It rebounded in my head, helped clear my mind in the purity of sound. I could hear the girls talking quietly behind me, and didn't wanna interrupt. Besides, that sound was still there, melodic and soothing. Let it be, I thought. Sometimes it's best to just let people know where you are, and leave it at that. If they need ya, they'll come, otherwise… best to leave them be. And to hope they will come when they need you. Did Suzy… would it have been better to…? No, can't think about that now. They'll be back here soon enough, then we've gotta cross the lake, find out what the hell's really going on here. I gotta finish up here soon, so I'll just get on with it. Excuse me if I miss anything out, but it feels like they're gonna get here soon. Getting back to it, then…
I tapped around a little more, getting a sense of the place and listening to the tone of the conversation behind me as the sound of the metal soothed my own mind. Didn't listen to the words though. At least, not on purpose, but enough to the tone to hear if anything was wrong. Sounded ok, though, calming words from Kate to Angela and back. I wondered what the hell had happened to them in the Park, there. My own trip had been quick and quiet, a few mascot costumes dumped around the place and some… some things that had probably been damn fool enough to attack Heather or Alessa or Cheryl or whatever the hell her damn name had been. But nothing live had been around that I'd seen, and nothing seemed to have attacked Kate, either. Maybe the place had… this sounds crazy, I guess, but maybe the town itself had been saving up the nastiness for Angela? I mean, she had said she was being kept here, maybe things happen more, or differently when you've been here longer.
It sounded like Kate was trying to make sure Angela would keep a gun from the heap of ammo. Angela with a weapon? Sooner ask a kid to beat up the boogeyman with a stuffed toy. But if there was even the outside chance that she'd actually use it to keep herself safe… Or at least safe from being attacked again…
"I think that's a good idea', I said, coming back to them, "Ya never know what you're gonna run up against in this place." Speaking of which, I thought, that Uzi's looking pretty sweet. I could do with that.
"I'll take the Uzi, if you don't mind?" I asked, as I picked the submachine gun from the pile.
Kate took the shotgun for herself, and just as I thought we were making progress, Angela piped up worrying about her beloved Damian. Argh, the less I hear about him, the happier I'll be, that motherfucker, messing up my hand like that. I couldn't feel sorry for him. Still can't.
"That guy can take three fucking bullets straight and survive," I told Angela, "What's he gotta worry about?"
"I think..." came a slurred voice behind my shoulder, "I'll take the blade." Slowly, so slowly, Damian leant in past us and held the sword's handle. I couldn't take my eyes off his hand. The skin was black, and burnt. It cracked open and oozed blood as he gripped the handle.
"Oh... Oh God..." Kate turned away from the man behind me and I stepped away, as much to get a good look at him as to get away from that smell, that horrible barbecue smell of burnt flesh…
"Relax, Katie," he said to her "It could be worse."
"How?" I asked, "How in God's name could it be worse?"
"You really don't want to know," he told me. And going from the laughter in his voice, dark and completely inhuman, I knew I really didn't wanna know. I couldn't take my eyes from his face, though. Kate didn't see it, I guess, couldn't have being as she turned away so sudden, but I saw. I saw his burnt flesh, saw his clothes melted into his skin, his hair burnt and crisped. Most of all, though, I saw his face. That face, he was so calm, so horribly calm. The fire had burnt his skin black, and his eyes were made darker by it all, they glittered like jet. Like dead stars burning bright into the unholy space between worlds…
I guess I woulda been staring all day if Angela hadn't interrupted. "Damian!" she gasped, "How did you...? What...?"
She was interrupted herself, though, before she could finish the question. Something had come into the room, joining us with no sound at all. It was fussing over the body of the 'God' monster, shaking it as though trying to wake it.
When that didn't work, it looked up at us. It had no eyes. My God, it had no eyes, but it stared at us, stared right through us, and I knew it could see everything inside me. Everything I'd done, all the things I'd thought and said. All my badness. And it liked it, it was hungry for it.
The soothing sensation I had felt earlier was being stripped away from me, I had felt calmed by the sound of the spikes, the cool and quiet of the room, and now… this thing made my stomach clench inside me, I was terrified, I tell ya. When it began to move to us, it moved angrily, as though it blamed us for the dead God. And I could barely move. I managed to bring my gun up, and I guess Kate did the same, trigger-happy little kid that she is, but it kept coming on. I began to really panic, and we both started to step back, my finger beginning to tighten on the trigger, ready to at least try to get out of this alive. But no dice, it kept coming, and I couldn't somehow make the shot.
Then HE walked forward, coming between us and the monster, and just raised his sword. Just that, and the thing stopped dead in its tracks, looked at him funny, and went back to the fallen God. Weird shit, but the number of weird things that happen around that guy…
The monster took the dead God by an arm, and dragged it to face the way it had fallen. It knelt down beside it and suddenly they were both burning up. A kinda funeral pyre, I guess. The flames flickered in the silence. I could feel the heat from where I stood, rising gradually as the bodies were consumed. And it seemed like the flames were… spreading? If fire could spread across dirt. And even if it couldn't, that's exactly what it was doing. I shifted on my feet. How could we get out? Cheryl had walked on the spikes, but I was certain we couldn't follow that way. And there was no other way out. I had seen a doorway or something in the distance earlier, where Cheryl had left, but looking now, even in the light of the fire, I could only see solid rock walls. The door had vanished.
Kate seemed to be thinking the same thing. "Uh... Damian?" she said, " we should probably..."
"Yeah," I agreed, "we should get outta here. It's hot as hell in here..."
For some reason, Damian's head snapped up. "What?"
Angela's voice floated up from the ground, dazed and as though dreaming. "You see it too?"
"Ohno..." said Damian, "Nonono..." He sounded almost afraid, I thought then. Thinking about it now, I guess that was just a sham. But at the time, I really thought he was scared.
"For me," Angela said slowly, "It's always like this...
"Damian," she said, getting up, "Give me back that knife..."
"No... I, I won't."
"Saving it for yourself?" she said, mocking him.
"Angela. Please…. Don't do this..."
"For me, it's always like this," she repeated. "Always like this, always like this." She turned to the metal spikes on the wall. "If you didn't take it... I don't know what I might do..."
She reached into her pocket, and I panicked. The gun! I thought, she's gonna fucking shoot us! Then she pulled it out, but it wasn't the gun. It was the black knife Damian had cut himself with. How the hell she got hold of it… I dunno. It wasn't the gun. All I could think was it wasn't the gun. My bemusement made me slower to catch on, but Kate got the message. Angela held the thing out, point inward...
"Angela! No!" Kate screamed, but didn't run to stop her, didn't even move. He ran though, you bet he did. He ran and tried to stop her, but he was too slow. Or maybe just didn't care. Angela had buried the blade in her belly by the time he got to her. They faced each other in the firelight, Damian swaying in the effort of standing, Angela gasping in pain as her life's blood bled away. I couldn't help but remember when I first saw them in the restaurant, arguing over her being kept here. Maybe this was what he had been keeping her from…? But... what the….hell? Why would she, why would anyone want that?
She looked up at the Dark Man, and smiled at him sadly. "I told you, Damian. I told you this town was too wrong. There's..." she broke off, the blood choking her speech, "There's nothing left here now. Just Darkness. Darkness devouring the whole town. And after that...
After that, nothing."
He looked like he could hardly stand anymore, but Damian drew Angela towards him, embracing her. "No..." he muttered, "no... tenebras...
"Post... post tenebras... lux."
As he finished speaking, sirens sounded in the distance, and a white light shone from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I had to throw up my hands to protect my eyes, but musta fallen down unconscious, cause all I remember next is just darkness. Darkness and a roaring silence as I fell.
And after that…
A/N - So there it is. Took a while, but it's there. And thanks again to DigiSim (whoever you are) for pointing out that mistake I made in the last chapter.