~Alas! My contribution to Halloween! It was either this or terrorizing small children...the latter of which I did anyway.~
Twenty minutes of pure boredom. Not a damn thing was going on in that room, not one! He tapped his pen dully on the desk, waiting. Behind him, his colleagues seemed to think this was fucking naptime, judging by the soft sounds of snoring that occasionally reached his ears.
God, watching holographic flies fuck would be more enjoyable than watching these guys! Apparently they were at their most docile when near others of the same 'lunatic' species.
That, and when they were encouraged to be their usual, crazy-ass selves.
Maybe if Tiedemann were here...weird shit practically revolves around that man...
Ugh, time to up the stakes on this one. The room's control board was right in front of him, after all. His eyes fell to the lighting switch and a devious grin cracked over his face. Hmm...wonder what would happen if he did, oh, say...this?
Nothing was happening. The other patients were keeping to themselves just as much as he was.
Apparently none of them was much for social situations.
At this rate they'd get along just fine.
Isaac sighed and leaned back in his seat. As he did so, he noticed one of the ceiling lights start to flicker.
Go figure...
Then the others started to as well, before suddenly all shutting down at once, plunging the room into a state of total darkness. He held his breath for a second as his heart began to race, listening hard...before jolting out of his chair at the piercing, girly shriek of one of the other patients...
And then the lights came back on...except that they were orange. A hazy, dark, reddish-orange...
He was clambering back into his seat, muttering something about a bruised ass...when they came.
All the chairs in the room were suddenly full of people. The other two patients were still there, too, but all of them -everyone- was covered in blood. No one moved. He'd seen this sort of thing one too many times to not know what he was seeing now, and he had to admit that it still wasn't impressing him.
They were dead.
They were all dead.
He felt suddenly rooted to the spot, however, as they all turned slowly, deliberately, to face him. Their eyes snapped open, and he only slightly jumped (but jumped all the same) as he saw that not one of them actually had eyes; only empty, sightless sockets.
Again, go figure.
Also: not good.
They were all 'staring' at him, all of them, through those deep black holes in their skulls. And they were whispering, though their mouths never moved. What they were saying he neither knew or cared, but occasionally legible snippets came to him as he backed away and began scouting for something heavy.
"Isaac..."
"...they're coming..."
"-calling..."
"...it's just the beggining..."
"-help me...find me..."
"-give purpose to the emptiness..."
"-they're looking to you now..."
"The Marker..."
"...liar..."
"-lead..."
"-Isaac..."
"Master..."
"-pancakes..."
"AAAAAHHHHH!"
Nobody was talking to him, or for that matter talking at all. Which was good, in a way. They certainly weren't yelling.
Alexis was always yelling.
But she wasn't here right now. That was good. He wished she'd stop yelling at him, about such strange things, too. He'd never hurt her, or their son; she of all people should know that. But she always told him he had; he did.
She was dead, she told him. She and their son were dead.
She told him he'd killed them. That he was a sick, sadistic murderer.
But he wasn't!
The monsters had taken them away.
He was not a monster.
He was a scientist, a husband, a father...not a monster. Not like those, things.
Never!
He was convinced she was trying to turn their son away from him, too. Sometimes he'd make such outlandish remarks, like 'Why, Daddy? Mommy says you hurt us...' 'Mommy said you're the reason we're not together anymore, Daddy.' 'Don't you love me anymore, Daddy?'
'Of course, son. I'll always love you...!'
'Then why am I DEAD, Daddy?'
Sometimes he could be harsh, too. He supposed that was what happened when one parent told you the other was scum all the time. He was with her so much anymore, no wonder he got a little hostile every now and then. Generally, though, he tried to understand his father. Most unlike his mother.
Such a good little boy...
"AAAAAHHHHH!"
Oh God she's back!
Don't be afraid, Isaac, her voice rang out from somewhere. They won't hurt you...they're dead, after all. YOU killed them.
"I think I'd recognize my own handiwork," he growled irritably. That voice sounded familiar...and not in a good way.
It certainly wasn't Nicole.
Liar...her voice said in a song-like, tauntingly-melodious tone. You killed them, you killed them, you killed them...
"Bullshit! They still have all their limbs!" he snapped, gesturing toward the obvious. He'd never killed anybody, only those things- the necromorphs- not people!
-Unfourtunately. This voice definitely sounded like it belonged to somebody from the lengthy list of people he wished he'd killed...
Those in the chairs began to change, now, as the voice chanted over and over that he'd killed them. Some went rigid in their seats, some pitched forward, ALL began to change grotesquely before his very eyes. Appendages that no human should ever bear erupted from their backs, their jaws broke apart, their necks elongated as muscles that needn't be forced them higher from their bodies...
Blood showered the once-white floors as they became the very stuff of nightmares, of his nightmares...
Ah hell... his eyes continued roving the room for anything he could possibly defend himself with. He knew how to deal with them, yes, but -dammit!- he didn't have his cutter- fuck, he didn't have anything!- to protect himself with. And he was pretty sure hospital slippers were not going to help him stomp them apart.
-you killed them, you killed them, you killed them, YOU KILLED THEM-
"FINE!" he yelled as he snatched up the the first thing he saw, oddly enough from a table he didn't even remember seeing in the first place. "If I killed them once, DAMNED if I won't kill them again! And this time I'll enjoy it all the more!"
"Don't you mean you'll make sure they actually stay down this time?" another female voice chortled in the back of his mind. One that wasn't exactly 'helping', either.
"-Er...yeah! That too!"
"Go get 'em, Tiger."
"Nicole dammit-!"
"I'm goin', I'm goin'..." she griped as her voice exited his mind.
"Holy shit!" someone cried as Patient Four suddenly armed himself with a vase of fake flowers and Patient Five started freaking out...well, Patient Four was doing something, anyway.
"-OW!" another yelped as someone else punched them awake. All around the viewing staff were coming alive as -finally!- something seemed to be happening.
Although quickly it was also concluded that whatever it was probably wasn't so much in terms of 'progress' as it was in terms of 'potentially hazardous to patients' health'...
Ah, well, he thought as the frenzied scratches of pens on paper replaced the snores of earlier. Let them have their fun...
Believe me, these people have been waiting for this as much as you have (assuming of course that you've been waiting at all?).
He was currently daydreaming about the good old days.
Back when his mother used to make waffles in the morning, before he went to school.
Back when his father used to ruffle his hair and call him 'Sport'.
Back when that Unitologist pastor used to smile seductively at him and wink-
-Er, ok, maybe not that far back.
Ah, yes, those were the days. Funny how heavy doses of weird pharmacutical drugs could bring up so many memories...
-That pastor always DID say I was the most attentive one at his sermons...
BESIDES those ones. He never even liked Pastor O'Brien! Especially not like that!
...ew...
-But he was always so nice. Sometimes he even gave me candy...
Funny how weird pharamacutical drugs seemed to bring up the weirdest shit, too. He was pretty sure the creepy bastard never gave him candy, though.
Sure he did. He gave me candy and took me for one-on-one study sessions. He told me all about the Marker, about convergence...about how my father was an unbeliever.
Yeah, his dad always had thought Unitology was bull...
Father was an unbeliever...someone that wasn't good enough for a growing boy with such deep spiritual values as I had. Someone who would only hinder my beliefs...
Wait, what? He didn't remember that...
The good pastor told me that he would be my father one day, He told me all about how he and my mother got along so well...how she was thinking about leaving my father for him...
No, that wasn't right. His mother had always loved his father! She was a good woman, a damn good woman!
-especially in BED.
What!
She was a cheating whore and I knew but I just kept it to myself. I still loved her even though I knew she was nothing more than a-!
No! NO! That wasn't his voice talking, he would never say that, not about his mother, never-!
SHE was the reason my father killed himself! Had she not been slutting around my father might still be here today-!
NO! His father was killed in a mining accident! He died in a fucking mining accident!
He died because my mother was disloyal!
BULLSHIT!
"Who's saying that?" he screamed. "Who the FUCK is saying that?"
A light tap on the shoulder cued him to turn around in rage, only to freeze up in horror as one of them latched onto him, it's mangled face inches from his own.
YOU'RE saying it you crazy bastard! it shrieked before driving the teeth of it's upper jaw (it didn't have a lower one) deep into his left shoulder.
She was screaming at him again. He heard her, oh God he heard her! Where was she? He tried to blot out her voice, but no matter how hard he tried he just couldn't do it!
Her screaming!
It was everywhere!
He couldn't take it, no, not right now-!
NO-!
One of them broke from the pack and charged forward, it's hideously-warped arms reaching for him. The sound it emitted was terrible, but eh, he was used to it.
He was also ready.
"Motherfucker!" he roared as he pulled back his arm.
The whole viewing room was on the edge of their seats as the patients finally gave way to their own individual afflictions. Patient Five was holding his ears and cowering on the floor, before he suddenly went running straight at Patient Four, who hauled off and threw the ultimate 'Hail Mary' pass dead at him; the vase of flowers smashed cleanly into his forehead and dropped him like a cadaver. Patient Two was on the floor wrestling with himself, and from the looks of things he was losing spectacularly.
"So, wait...what the hell're we supposed to glean from this?" his assistant nurse asked. He (I think you know it's that weird doctor from last chapter. I didn't feel like naming him; take three guesses why) only waved her question off.
This was getting good...and all he'd done was flick the lights!
He was starting to feel he deserved a promotion for such blatant brilliance...
The necromorph hit the dirt -er, linoleum- and he seized his opportunity to put it down for good. He rushed over and began stomping the living shit out of it, various curses spewing from him as they had never spewed before. He drove his foot repeatedly into that sorry mother in the frantic hope that if he could just-get-off-it's-arm-!
Ut, too late: something bear-hugged him from behind with an eager squealing roar.
"Like HELL!" he barked in retaliation as he pushed himself backwards with enough force to send both him and his attacker pitching to the floor. The beast seemed dazed upon impact, but he knew how long that shit lasted and he wasn't falling for it. Hastily he grabbed up a chair and held it high over the necro's head as it scrambled to get up, it's blades skittering over the floor as it attempted to get a hold-
The audience cringed collectively as Patient Four began wailing on Patient Two with one of the assorted chairs. Behind him Patient Five lay in an unhealthy-looking fetal position, twitching on the floor he'd practically been stomped into, before-
-a hologram popped up from the control board, causing nearly everyone to jump back in surprise.
"Aw man!" snapped the flustered-looking doctor that just cropped up. "Look, Patient One's in rare form today, I don't think we can send him in-!" he was tackled off-screen for a second as apparently Patient One pounced on him and took him down; four other people crowded the screen for a moment before managing to pry Patient One from the doctor, who popped back up sporting a bloody lip and a freshly-blackened eye. "See?" he panted as he wiped his lip on his sleeve.
"Hell with that! Send him in anyway!" someone opted. The man on the other end of the feed looked incredulous as Patient One's arms were seen straining for him from the far side of the screen.
"Are you kidding me? He'll kill someone!"
His face fell as the mass of people he was talking to began to chant as one, "Send. Him. In! Send. Him. In! Send. Him. In! Send. Him-!"
"Alright, dammit, fine! But fuck if I'm taking the fall for this!" In a huff he cut transmission and the experiment's staff began to cheer as they eagerly went back to watching the beat-down-in-progress going on in the viewing room.
She was in rare form today, she was. Before they had almost never fought, and if they had it was (generally) only ever a low-scale verbal altercation. Nothing major. Never anything major.
Oh, but today...he was pretty sure she had just stomped his ass, and for no good reason no less.
Alexis. Now you've gone too far...
"Honey," he started as he uncurled his battered and heavily-bruised body in an effort to get up, as well as brushed away as much blood from his eyes as possible. His voice was far too calm for anyone who'd just been bashed in the face with a flower arrangement and then nearly trampled to death. "Honey, that hurt..." He lifted his head just high enough for his eyes to fix on hers...
Only that wasn't Alexis anymore.
That was...
"What's the matter, Nolan? I thought you liked it rough," she winked down at him.
"I-Isabel?"
She grinned playfully as he finally got back up.
"You're not so used to being with me that you'd start calling me 'Alexis', now are you?"
"N-N-No, Isabel, of course not."
"Good." she purred. "You always did say I had it all..."
It was true; she did have it all. More than Alexis did, and in all the right places-
"-Except for that unsightly mole on your left buttock." he announced on sudden recollection. "That thing really is hideous-"
"Nolan!" she snapped, eyes flashing in sudden anger.
"I know, 'it's a birthmark'," he quoted her, continuing right along with a simple shrug. "I keep telling you to get it removed; even offered to pay-"
"Let's just focus on the task at hand here," she replied flatly, clearly unamused.
"-er, the what?"
"Come here and see me, big boy. It's been an awfully long time..." she reverted back to 'sex-kitten' mode (a feat in itself considering the mood-killer 'mole' remark). She began playing her tongue coyly across her lips, her vivd green eyes hooded by those shadowy lids of hers. Slowly she began to trace her right hand over the buttons of her blouse, up and down, up and down...stopping again at the very first one and working it apart with those devilishly crafty fingers...
He felt himself begin grinning like an idiot as she exposed more and more of her cleavage and he knew she was right. When it came to that, she was always right.
"It certainly has," he cooed, striding forward (nevermind the slight limp) to take her and claim her just as he had so many times before. The brutal beating of before was now a distant (and labeled 'kinky') memory.
She was about to make him feel all better...
FUCK!
He saw it out of the corner of his eye: that other bastard was already getting back up, and this one he was attacking now seemed impervious to chairs! It was bleeding like a damn siv but that didn't mean anything!
He cracked it one last good one in the hopes it was at least dizzy before the tottering monstrosity behind cast him in it's shadow. He could see from his periph that it's arms were spread wide as it moved in to take him in it's 'oh-so-tender' (and juicy, for those who like their hugs 'extra rare') embrace-
And just when it got close enough...
-he promptly spun around and landed some well-aimed 'sweet chin music' on that freak. It yowled out as it went reeling, crashing into another of it's cohorts that just so happened to be coming in through the door.
Aw, man! He knew it was only a matter of time before they started managing door keypads!
"Fuck my life!" he snapped as he quickly overturned the biggest table in the room and dragged it into a corner. Snapping off one of it's legs, he hunkered down behind his make-shift barricade and dared these necro-swill to try getting him now. He realized he was essentially trapping himself but at least this way maybe he'd survive their onslaught long enough to think up a better plan...this one in hindsight was probably shit...
Patient One was shoved uncerimoniously through the door just as Patient Five went careening backwards into him, instigating an instant mauling. Patient Two was still in a fog from the combined effects of his drugs and the savage-beating from Patient Four, who was currently hunkered down behind a table in the corner of the room and yelling various obscenities at the others.
As for the onlookers, well...
"Place your bets here, folks!" called one of the male nurses. "So far I've got fifty credits on Four! How about Five? Five? No? One? -ok I've got five creds on One! C'mon people, let's see those wagers!"
Father? He thought as the man standing over him just smiled down at him.
"Son, your head's bleeding." He said gently. "Pretty badly, as a matter of fact."
"Yeah, I'm, somewhat aware of that-"
"You might wanna take better care of that cranium of yours, you know. After all, some of us don't even have one..." At that, a thin red line began to show on his father's neck. As he watched, the line became darker, and began to seep blood...
A moment later, his father's still-smiling head slipped clean off his shoulders and rolled away across the floor. His body, however, remained standing.
"F-Father? Father? FATHER-?"
As he tried desperately to get back up, his father's neck -what was left of it- began to swell and bulge as a new mass rose up from his throat. To his horrified eyes, the 'thing' broke the meaty membrane of tissues over the topmost part of the neck and rose out of it...but it was backwards...
Not for long. The bloody thing swiveled around to show a new skull, one that he'd seen before...
One that needed his father's arms to help it properly adjust itself.
Oh God not again! he pushed himself backward as his father's body then fell prey to a number of squirming, squealing masses as they clambered out his flesh, sunk themselves in again from the outside, stretched his limbs, deteriorated him down to nothing.
Down to just loose pieces of flesh and the stringy creatures that newly comprised him...
And then the new head moaned as it's newly-formed body loomed over him; all tall and lanky and-!
His head jerked up like that of an alerted meerkat (extinct animal reference; oh well) as he heard that weird moan that reminded him of what a nature show had once told him whales had sounded like.
Where the fuck is it?
That big mother wasn't gonna hide it's tall skinny ass from him, oh no. This little peon slasher he'd dispatched easily enough; it was laying on the floor, motionless. That beast, heh, no way was he trying to bring that down without a weapon...those little ones that made it up were a right pain in the ass...
Let's see here...chairs? No. This slasher's blades? Better for impalement, really...that wasn't going to do him much of a favor here, especially without kinesis...
It moaned again.
Random teddy bear...? Brilliant!
He snatched up a totally random teddy bear from the floor and peered around warily for the divider...but oddly enough it was nowhere to be found...
Until it peered up from behind an overturned table.
What the...they can make fortifications now? Whoa hell-!
Maybe the situation was worse than he'd thought...
"Now I think about, this is the Children's Room, isn't it?" someone whispered as Patient One took hold of his 'deadly weapon'. A few others pondered that as they watched.
Now that they thought about it...
The slashers seemed to have retreated, most likely to go try and figure out a way to route him. He'd been clever with picking his corner, though: nothing was getting past him unless they came straight at him.
Sadly, they seemed to realize that, or at least some of them did, so they called in a veritable Goliath and sent him in.
He almost regretted having peeked over the table now; it gave an ear-splitting screech and charged him head-on.
OH shit...!
Isaac braced himself for it, braced himself, braced himself-
-but the beast never came forward any closer. Instead, it must've hurled something over the table, because a sickly-yellow pod landed next to his leg.
His defenses had been breached!
Good God, they've learned how to lob grenades! SHIIIIIIIIIIII-!
He launched himself over the table just in time to avoid being blasted into Convergence-land as the offending beast screeched what he could only assume was a victory cry. Pumped up as he was from nearly being blown apart, he jumped back up and ran his hardest forward, taking a running leap and clubbing it over the head with his table leg before it had time to properly react. It took a staggering step back and he took the initiative to smack it a couple more times in various places (looking a lot like a cop with a billy club...'Officer Clarke'? O.o) before the others took after him again.
"Ok you bastards, here I am! Let's go!" he challenged as they lunged forward, and the battle was on!
"Is this any more disturbing than watching him make-out with a height scale?" a nurse asked as they all watched Patient Four now swinging wildly at open air; occasionally kicking-at and grappling-with things only he could see.
...
"Naaaaaaaah."
His vision was blurry and he hurt all over. The last thing he remembered was Isabel...and he grinned again to himself.
"Damn, baby. I'm gonna be feeling this for weeks..."
He then noticed she was gone, and realized with some satisfaction that she'd probably gone off to light a cig.
Hehe...
Contentedly staring up at the ceiling, he tried to remember their time together, but oddly failed to do so. Then again, blunt-force trauma to the head prior to fornication can probably have that kind of effect on you. That and-
"How're you feeling, baby?" he heard as he felt something heavy begin moving up his very sore leg. The weight was uncomfortable, but he could deal with it. The reward was gonna be so sweet...
"Like I'm ready for round two," he said in his most silky tone as she brought herself to where he could feel her warm breath on his neck-
"Wait, what?" she snapped incredulously as her eyes suddenly met his, and his stomach sank to levels he didn't even know existed as Alexis, not Isabel, leaned over him.
That which had once been his father was closing in on him, and he knew the only defence he had at the moment was his own body. His mind was racing as he backed away, trying to buy time. Maybe if he stunned it somehow...he could always rush it, that might do the trick. Force it into a wall and then get the fuck away...
The devil from behind the table had leapt clear and run off, where to he hadn't the slightest clue. All he knew was that it just beat him up and it was still living, which meant that now he was really gonna have to watch his ass something fierce; slashers (in reasonably small numbers of course) were child's play compared to that monstrosity.
And speaking of slashers...
There was one now, working over what he thought -but wasn't sure- was a corpse. His eyes went wide as he remembered what experience had taught him slashers did with dead bodies. He was gonna have to stop it-!
"Hey asshole!" he screamed. "Yeah, you! Over here, ya ugly prick!" It's head jerked up and it's eye (the other was hanging from the socket) locked on him. Giving an excited growl, it dropped it's former prize and charged. He braced himself, knowing full-well how to handle this one.
Wait for it...
Something pounced him and pain seared through his body as something slammed him into a wall. It's roar was deafening; in honor of it's pinning him he felt it draw back and subconsciously sensed it raising a blade for the finishing blow...
He took that minor shift in it's weight to land his elbow hard into it's neck region; when it withdrew a little further he spun and grabbed it's face as hard as he could before twisting it's head clean off and kicking away the body. Even without a head it would still attack him: he was gonna have to dispatch it a little further if he wanted to make sure it stayed down. And he knew just how he was gonna do it...
"Holy Shit!" a cry went up as Patient One twisted Patient Two's neck so hard his head literally popped off like a friggin' grape.
"Quick, call Security!" another snapped as some of the others voiced for an immediate cancelation of the experiment.
"The line's busy!"
"Ah hell!" the lead doctor yowled as Patient One proceeded to wrestle an arm off the lifeless body of Patient Two. Then he caught sight of Patient Four, still battling the invisible masses of 'Altman-knows-what'...
The only thing to do while the line was busy was to continue watching; no one was going in there. Part Two of the experiment had in fact called for such but screw that now; nobody with even a quarter of a brain stem was going in there unless they were heavily armed, and at the moment all they had were clipboards and office pens. Yeah...
Meanwhile, in the blacked-out security room...
"Is this the 'Hot Girl's Hotline'?" the chief of security murmured into the hologram. "Hurhurhur...yes, can you put me through to 'Dotty'? Aw yeah..."
Isaac was busy grappling still another slasher when he saw yet another slip out of the shadows and move in on him.
"Oh motherFUCK me!" he yelped as he tried to fend this other one off quickly while still opting to stay away from it's vicious teeth. It's fangs were angled right for his neck and if he made even the slightest mistake he was surely in for one hell of a hickey...
But suddenly someone else dove into the fray, cutting off the oncoming necro with a powerful 'spear' that took both parties sailing across the room. Isaac just barely avoided having his jugular turned to a necro's V8 as he kicked the first beast away and sprinted toward the human that just had saved him.
"Hey man, thanks," he said as he grabbed a nearby chair (his table leg had been lost at some point in his previous battle) and took up a defensive stance.
"Don't mention it," the other guy said, grabbing his weapon up from the floor: a slasher blade. "We can't hold them off forever," he said as he caught sight of Isaac's stance. "C'mon! We've gotta get out of here! Follow me!" he then made a break for the door, Isaac hot on his tail; chair in tow.
"I didn't even know that was there," he breathed as suddenly his new friend swore loudly.
"SHIT! It's fused shut!"
"Here! Cover me; I'm an engineer!" Isaac thrust his chair at the man and ducked down to begin working over the door panel. His new partener began to visciously ward off their 'would-be' attackers as Isaac fervently worked to override the door locks.
"C'mon...c'mon...! Ok, I got it!" he cried as the other man shoved away one of the horde with the chair. Isaac grabbed up the slasher blade and took over 'cover-duty' as his new friend scooted through the door; once he was safe Isaac took off after and the door shut just in time to hinder the necromorph's advance.
Even though some of them had learned how to work doors...
The mad melee only got stranger as Patients One and Four suddenly recognized each other and entered into an 'alliance' of sorts. That in itself was incredible! And it seemed the two were now seeing the same things; again, holy shit! Then they hacked the door panel and managed to pull off an escape! Holy...wait, what? OH HOLY SHIT!
"Ow..." he muttered as he struggled to stay awake, much less get up. He'd been so scared in the face of Alexis' impending wrath that he must've blacked out; in light of that his battered body hurt worse than ever. On the plus side, he noted he was back in one of the viewing rooms...maybe someone could give him something for pain? Something that hopefully wasn't perscribed as another 'session'?
He finally managed to push himself into a sitting position and the first thing his eyes fell on was the headless corpse in the corner of the otherwise-wrecked room. It was still gushing blood all over the floor...
"Daddy?" a voice came from behind him. "Daddy, what's that?"
Oh my God my son! He'll see that!
"Son!" he said as brightly as humanly possible, spinning around and trying to use his own body -beaten and unsightly as it was- to try and block the cadaver from the little boy's inquiring eyes. "Son, ah...what're, what're you doing here?"
"Mommy said I should spend some time with you."
"Boy, 'Mommy' sure knows how to pick the perfect times..." he growled under his breath.
"What, Daddy?"
"Nothing!"
"Aw, hell..." the new guy exhaled as they both paled before the brute before them. 'Brute' quite literally...it stood before them, pawing the ground angrily with it's big, beefy forearms as it stared them down. Next to him, (Isaac) gulped, but none-the-less raised his chair for combat.
"Are you crazy?" he gasped at this. What did this guy think he was up against? An over-sized office desk?
"Probably..." he answered in a low tone. He was anxious, but he was also serious. And determined.
"'Probably' my ass! You can't just-!"
"I'm goin' for it!" (Isaac) screamed as he charged ahead. The brute roared it's own challenge and stood it's ground against the oncoming loon, weilding a chair over his head like a true winner.
Then again, maybe if they could just get past it, they could escape further into the facility, maybe even get out-!
Maybe this guy wasn't so crazy after all...
Then again, he thought as the Brute swept him aside effortlessly with a single sweep of a giant arm...
"Security? Security! Yes! The patients have escaped the viewing room and are-what? Yes! ...yes...yes! And they're both armed...no. One with a chair and one with another man's arm- w-why are you laughing? Dammit that shit's not funny! Wha-no! Just get down here! And be careful! -Pardon? 'What are they doing now'? Let me see..." the doctor on the phone refocused his attention to the monitor showing the escaped patients. The one the rest of the viewing staff were staring at in silence.
"Right now they're...!" he suddenly found himself unable to finish that sentence. Why?
The two patients...were attacking (and quite visciously)...
A vending machine.
"Uh..." he gaped as the sweat began to bead on his forehead.
The brute wasn't budging and they were both running low on stamina. Any more of this pointless attacking and they'd be layed out in no time. And trying to route it just wasn't doing it either; the beast was more than capable of fending them both off at the same time, from any side...no matter how they looked at it, they were fucked. In the ass. With a spatula.
Why a spatula, well...he had no idea, but it seemed appropriate, so he thought it. He tried relating that thought to his 'chair weilding maniac' of an accomplice, but alas...
"No! There's gotta be a way; I'm not giving up now, dammit!" he snapped in response. He rushed forward but again managed only to bounce pitifully off his enemy; skidding to a stop on the floor alongside him after being thrown back.
"...give up yet?" he leaned over him.
"Nnngh...n-no! No-Not yet!" he strained his body to rise again, and repeated his performance; only this time landing on his stomach instead of his back. The brute howled out and he actually thought it might -just might- be laughing at them...
Scratch that: it definitely was laughing at them. It leaned back and shot a large pod from it's gut that smacked (Isaac) dead in the head as he made to get up again. Needless to say...
"How 'bout now?" he leaned over his again-fallen comrade.
"ENGH-!" he made to get up-
CRACK!
"OW-Mother-!" he went down again.
"..."
"N-N-Nevah-!
CRACK!
"Ack-!"
"...now?"
"FINLAND!"
CRACK!
...Man I'm gonna die here... he thought lamely as the brute continued to assail them from afar; well, one of them, anyway...
Just as the Security team rounded the bend (in full-blown riot gear no less) they all found themselves unable to hold their shock-prods properly as their hands -and jaws- suddenly went slack. There were the escaped patients, all right...
Clearly they'd been attacking the poor vending machine before them; but on the same note, the vending machine now seemed to be fighting back: the battered thing was shooting cans at the two men, neatly popping Four in the head with each one it shot. Finally sick of the fact that his partner seemed no longer capable of thought from so many blows to the head, Patient One made to shove him out of the cans' path; consequently he took one to the crotch, sank to his knees in pain, and took another to the face before slumping over in a groaning heap, holding himself. One of his teeth bopped off one of the Security Guards' face masks, and that seemed to rouse him from his stupor long enough for him to call in someone from Medical...as well as somebody to fix the vending machine.
(And just to end this on a much brighter note...)
It was dark in the room, the only light coming from the monitor before him. His finger's were practically flying over the keys as he typed in what he'd seen today of the patient's' behavior. The discovery they'd made today would surely help their research into the Marker by leaps and bounds!
Tiedemann would be pleased.
Though the day had been, well...'strange' enough (and certainly chok-full of it's wonky mishaps) they had watched as somehow the dementia of Patient's One and Four had actually fused...an occurance which could possibly expedite their research by years! If they managed to tap into it properly...
But yet...
Something was troubling him. No, not the violence (or stupidity) of the patients- they were always like that: 'there' one minute; 'gone' the next. No, what bothered him was more deep-seated, more profound...
Something was whispering to him, it's voice getting louder with each passing moment. The more he tried to shrug it off, the more insistant it seemed to become. He wanted to ignore it, but somewhere deep down...he didn't.
It seemed to sense such, and nagged him all the more.
Eventually words started becoming discernable from the static. They made little sense, but he supposed that was because he wasn't listening hard enough...
"...the Master..."
"-near..."
"...no?"
"Hidden..."
"-hiding."
"...hurry..."
"...find."
"-waffles?"
"...wha?
He strained to listen harder, until sentences -whole ones- came to him, but they were still in a fragmented form. By now he was focusing so hard on the voices that he took no notice of the very real 'thud!' from the vent behind him.
He didn't see the milky-white gleam of eyes peering out at him, lit by the soft glow of the console.
He wasn't aware of anything wrong...until the voices in his head stopped altogether, to be replaced by one very deep, raspy tone.
You're keeping the Master locked away from us... it hissed.
"What 'Master'?" he found himself asking out loud.
OUR Master...
"I don't understand."
Of course not. One who does not belong cannot possibly hope to comprehend...
"Then why are you telling me this?" he was more than a little irked by how vague this little chat was...let alone it's implications. He needed a day off...
You're quite cruel to our Master, you know. Further subjecting him to the vengence of our former Keeper... the voice turned to a silken, icy tone.
"And what'm I to make of that?" he snapped.
You'll find out...soon enough.
-back at 'home'...
"So did you find him or what?" asked one of the slashers.
"Of course I did!" retorted the leaper fresh back from 'staking out the joint'.
"...and?" someone else pressed as the others found their way over.
"Got his room key right here," the leaper said. "Hold on, lemme get it..."
It widened it's jaws and heaved a moment before coughing up the keycard to Isaac's room, as well as a leg and half a torso.
"AUGH!" some turned away. Others, of course...
"-And you didn't save me any?" someone said grudgingly.
"I'm sure there's some pieces left if you wanna go find 'em," the leaper shrugged. The inquiring slasher then vaulted into the nearest vent with a loud 'Sweet!'.
"So what'd that taste like?" one of the spitters poked at the torso in disgust with a blade.
"Like a strawberry lollipop," the leaper suddenly zoned out at the 'human' rememberance of what strawberry lollipops actually tasted like (they do have vague recollections of their 'past lives' every now and then, after all).
"Blegh...looks like 'grape' to me..." the spitter said with disdain.
-Speaking of 'lollipops'...a little later on, the slasher that went 'looking for leftovers' just so happens to return with...
"-a Blow Pop!" it says happily, gnawing on a man's (guess who's) head stuck on a small column of spine serving as a 'stick'.
~Holy Snap! Long chapter maybe? Damn, I went crazy on this one...
Ok guys, well I tried. Last chapter...meh. With luck this'll be an improvement? *crosses fingers* I did add in a suggestion, though (kinda): here's hoping I didn't disappoint? ':D eheh?
Well anyway, enough of my kissing up. If I failed I failed! Lol :P
But in all seriousness this actually started out being strangely serious...and then I had an energy drink, looked it over again, and said 'Nay'.
And thus new and stranger concepts were made for me to play with in future installments...
Yes, so now I leave you with this: Next chapter probably wont be up for a good while. Not to worry though, this story isn't going to die anytime soon so far as I know, unless it cracks up and blows it's own head off with a Plasma Cutter. That being said, now I won't have to feel like I need a filler chapter *cough: Four! cough* just to prove this story's breathing; it'll be right where I left it, giggling creepishly in a corner of your computer...until you flush the air.
Which I hope you won't do.
Alrighty then, I sincerely hope you enjoyed. I giggled a bit (not creepishly) over some parts myself, but that could've been the caffeine. Who knows.~
P.S.: Oh, before I forget: do you think this chapter should be rated 'M'? I'm not 100% on it...I don't want to overrate but I don't want to underrate either. Future stuff might get bumped up to 'M' here and there for sure, but what do you think?