Things Go 'Bump' In The Night
Disclaimer: I do not own any share of the Halo franchise/trilogy. And I do not condone/encourage or commit any acts that are presented in this chapter. One of my friends does this stuff and asked me to recount it (no joke).
A/N: In Australia thongs are uncovered footwear. Just making sure.
The moon shone down upon the normally peaceful suburb of Kuraby. Most of the people in the estate of Orchard Heights were sleeping peacefully. A breeze in the soft and silent night. Trees in the park inside the estate swayed with the wind. A small few houses glowed dimly. The street lamps were limited, but they glowed brightly and came as a complete contrast to the black of the night.
A chill swept through Alex as he stood out the front of his house, watching the windows and his lonesome reflection in the glass. The small gust of wind tugged softly at his hair, and he brushed it back into place. He hugged himself closer, wishing he had brought a jacket of some kind. His loose denim shorts and barely-fitting Avenged Sevenfold shirt wasn't cutting it. On his feet he wore socks and runners. A lot better than Jonno's footwear, which, last Alex checked, was a pair of thongs. Teeth chattering. It was okay, though, because soon they would be running around, sweating, becoming hot, all that jazz.
The gate in the fence to Alex's backyard swung open and Jonno, Kiel, Harry and Andrew all ran out, eager to make it off the unnecessarily large front lawn and onto the road of the cul-de-sac.
"What took you guys so long?" Alex hissed as they slowed down to a walk and turned to the mouth of the street.
"Jonno lost one of his thongs," Kiel laughed.
Harry punched Jonno in the arm.
"Fucking idiot," he joined in the laughing.
Alex joined their line of walking and glanced across at Jonno's face, which, illuminated by a street lamp, went bright red with shame. Looking down, Alex saw that Jonno was now wearing no footwear of any kind. In the cold situation that they were in, this went very poorly with his shorts and singlet. Alex could almost see the goosebumps brought up by the cold.
"Shut up!" Andrew hissed at them. "We're still in the street, and if the parents hear us and wake up, we're boned!"
"Have you got the torch?" Alex asked, and in response Kiel shone it in his eyes before shoving the miniature torch into his jacket pocket.
The group emerged from the cul-de-sac and turned left, constantly glancing back to make sure no one back at the house had heard them get out.
About 5 metres out, Jonno laughed.
"It does gonna be a lot harder getting is when in 3 hours from now."
There was a verbal silence as they continued on, the only sounds being made done so by their walking. Finally Harry turned to Jonno.
"What?"
Concealed by the shadows cast by a large tree at the mouth of the street, a figure watched with interest as Alex, Andrew, Jonno, Kiel and Harry began a jog out of the street. They passed within metres of the figure, but none of them bothered to look into the shadows. They continued on as the figure made ready to follow them.
A T-intersection up ahead proved a dilemma for the group, as they were so hyped up on adrenaline they didn't know which way to go – left, right or do the house straight in front of them.
Andrew immediately abolished the latter of the three.
"We are not going to knock and run, or ding-dong-ditch – whatever the hell you wanna call it – the house that is a 60 metre walk down the road and in almost plain sight of my house. Now pick, left or right."
Jonno nodded and swallowed a mouthful of saliva before speaking up.
"We are in agreement with you, Andrew, or, as someone else might put it, we concur. In saying that we harmonize with this reasoning, we are in total harmony and we have what would be called an accord. This may also be stated with the synonym agreement, in the sense that we are all in agreement, which brings us back to the beginning, when we agreed with your statement. Now, no one that has any form of sanity would even consider the alternative of the right choice when presented with the wrong and right statement. Therefore, we all agreed with you because you were right. In conclusion, I do believe that your statement has influenced all of us to lean towards the preference of the right turn, then in turn solving our predicament – the classic 'one or the other – with the superior of the 50/50 selection: the right turn."
There was an awkward silence as the group stared at Jonno with unbelieving eyes at the logically complex sentence he had just uttered at 11:18 pm on a Friday night.
The silence was broken by Alex.
"What? Dude, what!?"
"I can live with that." Harry said.
"Yeah," Andrew agreed. "Right it is."
"No," Alex said. "I know, I can live with it too, but… what the fuck was that?!"
They started walking to the right, Alex still trying to contemplate what the hell just happened.
"Why not just say 'right"? I don't know what the fuck just happened?!"
Harry patted him on the shoulder.
"Don't worry, no one does!"
Harry then turned to Jonno to congratulate him on his first logically contradictory sentence, but was surprised to find nothing but air floating next to him – no Jonno. He turned around, along with the rest of the group, to find Jonno standing in the exact same position that he had been in when he finished speaking.
"Jonno?"
They moved closer, concerned. They stood in front of him, watching with worrying eyes as his only movement was the soft twitch of his left eyelid.
"You right, mate?"
Suddenly Jonno straightened, his eyes shot fully open, and he yelped something incoherent. The other four nearly shit their pants, jumping a foot into the air each and yelping themselves. Jonno looked around wildly, then calmed down a little, but still glanced around.
"What happened?" He said. "I blacked out for... a… minute…How the hell did we get outside?"
After five minutes of walking, laughing and hooning around on main roads, street roads, cul-de-sacs and many a pathway that led to dead-ends, the group was beginning to doubt they'd find any hedge that looked good enough to relax them when they fell through it.
"Now," Alex explained. "The first rule of hedge jumping is to always watch your exits. You never know when you're fall through a nice and soft hedge and land on the perfectly green and cushiony grass and then wham!" – he slapped his right fist into his open left hand for emphasis – "an old bastard comes out of the house with a shotgun and blows the shit out of you then pisses on your bloody remains and teabags the fucked up lump of shit that could once pass for your face."
The group stared at him, something that seemed to be happening a lot this night.
Alex held up his hands in defence. "Hey, I'm just saying, it happens!"
Andrew continued on for him.
"Look around for the best way out possible – regardless of whether they chase you or not – so you're totally sure that they can't lose you. Stick with Alex and me, we kn-"
"Alex and I." Kiel corrected.
"What?"
"You said 'Alex and me', where it's 'Alex and I."
"Dude, shut up." Harry laughed.
"Anyways," Andrew continued. "Stick with Alex and I, because we know these streets better than you."
"Fucking big shot…"
"What was that?"
Jonno stood his ground as Andrew rounded on him, laughing, but still raising a menacing fist.
"I said, f-"
"Guys!" Harry interrupted. "Look!"
They all turned and followed Harry's pointing arm to find a hedge sitting on the front lawn, so beautifully fluffy, a street lamp shining its beam down over the hedge in a very cliché manner.
"The perfect hedge!" Jonno had forgotten that Andrew had been ready to pummel him, joking or not, and began drooling.
"Alright, alright." Alex said, snapping out of his own hypnotic ordeal and looking at the others. "Rule number 2 is keeping your head. You must never lose focus, otherwise you are fucked beyond saving. Feel the hedge. Pet it on the top and sides – gently – so you can see how many branches are close by and determine whether it's too hard or soft."
The group edged forwards slowly, Jonno still having left his chin on the road behind him. Figuratively, of course.
They stepped onto the grass of the front lawn, onto the footpath, onto more grass, and they reached the hedge. Alex ran his hand over the top of it. The leaves were nice and soft – but of course, they were leaves. He pressed down slightly and felt that the layer of leaves was not all that thick, but the branches up top were thin. This would be a soft hedge, but not too soft. Perfect.
"Alright, guys," He said. "Back up. Let the master show you how it's done!"
They all moved away from it, back across the road, and onto the gutter on the opposite side.
"You guys, this is it. I want everyone to follow me in – pick a part of the hedge, any part, unless you want to pass straight over and have to deal with mass back pain. And remember – it's not so much jumping as it is launching – fall through backwards."
He set his eyes straight and let them wander over the house. The front door was about 10 metres away from the hedge, if that. There was one light on, but from what he could see it was near the back of the house. He took a deep breath and looked at the hedge.
Come on. He thought to himself.
You've done this a million times, what's there to be afraid of?
He ran. Cool wind rushing. He hit the road and gathered speed. The hedge got closer and closer. Onto the gutter, the footpath.
Now!
He spun around and propelled himself backwards. His lower back felt light resistance as it touched the upper leaves of the hedge, and then he fell on top of it. The branches cut at him as he fell through the middle of the rectangular bush, and then he hit the hard stuff, something he had not been wary of, not anticipated.
Stones. A bed of them just behind the hedge. He landed on his back hard, with his legs still propped up in the air on the hedge.
He yelled in pain.
With a whump a body landed next to him and yelled an obscenity. He saw it was Jonno.
"Come on," he said frantically to Jonno, chuckling. "Let's go."
Jonno was laughing.
Alex struggled but finally managed to wriggle onto his stomach, and then he used his hands to crawl away and let his legs off the hedge. There was a rustle of leaves as someone else flew through the hedge. A branch snapped loudly. "Ow, dammit!"
Alex stood up, but then a body mass slammed into his legs and knocked him over. His face hit the stones, but he was still laughing.
"Go!" he heard Andrew yell as he scrambled to his feet.
Alex helped up Jonno then Harry, turning towards the house as the security light came on, followed closely by the opening of the front door. His heart lurched.
"Oh shit!"
The owner of the house yelled something Alex didn't have the time to understand as he helped up Kiel and they ran around the hedge and onto the road.
"Go, go!" Alex yelled.
They ran along the road laughing while the owner of the house yelled at them from the safety of his front lawn. They ran past a house before Alex found another hedge. He ran off the road and 'super-manned' it without missing a stride.
'Super-manning' something is essentially diving into a hedge head-first. More brain damage that way.
Alex hadn't felt this particular hedge before, and it turns out that there were hardly any branches whatsoever. He shot straight through it as if it wasn't there, then landed flat on his face. The wind was knocked out of him with a giant whoosh!
He gasped, standing up and then struggling to run and laugh. He came up with a half wheeze that sounded like Frankenstein's monster with the flu.
"Fucking go!"
He limped across the road to join the others in their own marathon. Andrew was at the head of the pack, navigating back and forth along the road as if someone were shooting at him. As if the Covenant were shooting at him.
Alex's ran became a jog, then a power walk, until he came to a stop. A blank look crossed his face as he remembered the pain he had suffered in the middle of that game. The pain that he had caused the fake men and women who then became real, living, breathing human beings upon his arrival. He had to live with the fact that they had died
"Alex!" The shout came from a distance, as if the person were standing at the end of a long, long tunnel.
He breathed faster, faster, faster…faster…faster...faster, faster.
"Alex!" the second yell scared the shit out of him.
Harry was in his face, laughing and grabbing his shoulders and pulling him along. Alex snapped out of it and ran as well, the smile completely wiped from his face.
He would have to deal with this, sooner rather than later.
As they continued on, no one noticed a slight movement against the houses to their right – a shadow moving on a shadow. The figure moved swiftly and gracefully alongside the group whilst eyeing them, Alex in particular.
After a few more corners were rounded, and the group was sure that the heat was off, they slowed to a jog. Jonno and Kiel slapped a high-five. Harry laughed, and Andrew collapsed on the ground in a heap.
"That," panted Harry. "Was awesome!"
A glance to the left of the figure insured that the old man was still making his way up the street with a shovel in hand. That would be an obstacle. The figure took a deep breath and then flitted from the safety of a shrub out into the open and towards the laughing hooligans.
More laughter. Alex doubled over began coughing among fits of laughter, and Jonno pulled off one of his thongs and tossed it at him. "Die quietly." He joked.
Suddenly a mass slammed into Alex, sending air exploding out of his lungs. He went sprawling along the ground and rolled a couple of metres, wrestling with his new opponent. The rest of the group yelled their surprise and fell backwards in shock, unsure of what to do.
With a jolt of fear, Alex realised that it was an alien – an Elite or a Jackal of the Covenant..
They're here.
He tried to scream, but no air came out of his lungs. A flare of light shone on the creature's face, and Alex's horror subsided.
"Thea?" Alex panted, his disbelief apparent.
The 'creature' was in fact Thea Wright, a 14 year old girl whose house sits only a few streets away from Alex's. Although the two were seemingly binary opposites, there was an obvious spark between them. Sporting wavy, dark brunette hair and blue eyes, she was the new target for the guys at the school that they shared.
Right now, however, she was sitting on top of him, and he was holding her wrists.
Think of something snappy, she thought, then put on a smug grin and looked at her watch in the light of Kiel's torch.
"3…2…1… congratulations, Alex – 14 years old. You've caught up with the rest of us."
Alex felt a strange warmth travel through his body. She remembered But then he panicked.
Think of something snappy…
"Well, I don't think that's the most subtle come on from you just yet." He smirked.
Thea's smile disappeared, and she leapt off of Alex. Spinning around to face Kiel, she placed her hands on her hips. "Will you please stop shining that light in my face?"
Andrew, Kiel, Jonno and Harry were all still on the grass, flabbergasted by the fact that Thea had burst out of the shadows.
Suddenly, a shout aroused them.
"It's the old man!" hissed Alex, struggling to find his feet.
"And that's exactly why I've been following you half the night – he's got a bloody shovel!"
"I've always wanted a guardian angel."
"Yeah, but if you call be Gabriel I'll call you an Ambulance."
In this short exchange they had all found their feet, and stood in a circle. A silence had fallen over them.
"So what do we do now?" Kiel asked, flashlight still in hand.
Thea started to speak and Kiel turned to face her, but in doing so shone the light in her face. "Ow, Jesus Kiel!"
He apologised and clumsily flicked it off before stuffing it once more into his pocket.
"We have to go back to the house" Harry said.
Andrew was against it.
"We've only just started!" he argued.
"But didn't you hear? The man's got a fucking shovel."
"The old man. We can outrun him."
"Yeah – straight back to the house"
Andrew started to rebut, but decided against it.
"Fine," he said with a sigh. "I've got work in the morning anyway."
"Hey!"
The shout made them all turn. Standing on the gutter was the old man, holding a shovel as if it were a sword.
"Run!" Jonno bellowed, breaking the silence that had fallen over them.
In response they all ran, save Alex, who was rooted to the spot.
Contrary to what Andrew had said, the old man was fast for someone his age, and had crossed the large gap with a stride in seconds. With no mercy, he swung the shovel at Alex.
A hand grabbed Alex's arm and pulled him away. He felt the whoosh as the shovel missed him by inches.
He just took a swing at me! Alex thought in disbelief as Thea pulled him towards a footpath running between houses.
"Hurry up!" Thea yelled over her shoulder as she let go of his arm and ran ahead. She cleared the 'alley' and turned to look back.
Alex wasn't there.
She groaned and ran back into the darkness of the path. The old man was a while away and, judging by the fading of his shouts, had gone in the wrong direction.
"Alex?" she hissed.
A whimper. She pressed on, her eyes scanning the darkness.
"Alex?"
There. He was crouched in a corner formed by two wooden fences. Thea moved towards him.
"Come on, Alex, we have to go. The others are…" she trailed off when she got a look at his face.
That look. He wore the same look of anguish that she had seen before. Only this time it was laced with shock, and he quivered and whimpered.
"Alex?" she asked again, kneeling to get eye-level with him.
No response.
Alex ran with Thea down a narrow path, away from the old man with the shovel.
"Hurry up!" she bellowed.
Suddenly, an explosion detonated a ways away, throwing billowing flames into the sky. Panic jolted through him, and he stopped. The sky turned from black to grey, lit up by the explosion, and the others that joined it. An invisible force slammed into him and knocked him onto the ground. Looking up, he saw that most of the houses were gone, and those left standing were blackened ruins. Loose flecks of dirt tumbled around the now-red sky. Thea was nowhere to be seen.
He called out for here. There was no response but the howling wind.
A roar chilled him to his bones, and he turned to see an Elite standing roughly 20 metres away, wielding a Covenant Energy Sword.
"Alex!"
The shout made him turn back, and he saw a figure, burnt to a crisp from the explosions, staggering towards him. And then realisation hit him.
"Thea?" he whimpered.
The figure who was once Thea staggered forwards for a few more metres before falling to the ground and exploding into dust. Alex tried to scream, but the sound was caught in his throat. He turned around once more to find the Elite towering above him. The alien raised the sword menacingly before driving into Alex's shoulder – the same one that was shot on Lockout during the Halo 2 multiplayer.
This time the scream came easily.
"Jesus…"
Thea kneeled in front of Alex and watched in amazement as blood began to pour from his shoulder. She quickly wiped the blood away, without a thought on what she was doing, and was astonished at what she saw.
There was no wound.
"We need to get you to a hospital," she said frantically, and then pulled out her mobile phone and dialled triple-zero. Alex whimpered softly.
"Hello? Get me an Ambulance. No, I don't have time-. But-. Christine street, Kuraby. Family?"
When the mind runs overtime, it can leave certain vital pieces of information out – pieces that might be need-to-know. This phone conversation turned out to be one of those times.
"None. No family. Thea Wright. Okay. Thank you."
Brisbane city was lit up like a Christmas tree, despite the fact that it was just after midnight. Cars travelled busily along highways and bridges as many people finished or started shifts at work.
In an empty alleyway, there was a flash of light, and an Elite in white armour appeared in mid-roar. It continued shouting for a full half unit before stopping to examine its surroundings. The location was still the human's prized 'Earth' – no doubt there – but it was somehow less sophisticated than the previous location he had been deployed to.
Thuma 'Olsomee did a double-take before looking around again. Where had the armoured human gone? He growled. Looking down he saw three bullet holes in his left breastplate with purple blood oozing out of them.
He then realised that he had been blessed – blessed by the Prophets – and given another chance.
Another chance to attack the human stronghold, with a little more planning this time.
Eyeing the human's pathetic structures used for construction, a plan formed in his mind. He did not know whether he was the only soldier to have this strange experience but hopefully, given time, more would arrive. That was fine by him. The plan would require time, regardless. For a brief moment he had a vision of a shiny new destroyer in the fleet – for him to command.
With his mandibles formed into what could pass for a twisted grin, Olsomee slowly backed into the shadows.
END PART 1
A/N: Sorry this has taken so very, very long. Please review!