Disclaimer – Usual stuff. If I owned the TMNT-verse, do you think Fast Forward would be running?
Rating: R/M for dark scenes, graphic images of death, character death
Monster World
Chapter One: Road to Death
5 years later…
Jack Tate was scared shitless. Not of the night or the dark. At 25, he knew better. His grip tightened around the K-Bar knife at his side. At least it was a clear night. He was grateful for that at least.
But he was still scared.
If anyone had told him that a column of light would signal the end of the world, he would have laughed his head off. No way could light be the portal to another dimension. But, it was. Five years ago – monsters had come screaming out of the Winters Corp building, signaling the end of Man. He had heard whispers of monsters fighting monsters, strange bipeds that looked like turtles, fighting on rooftops in the rain. He had dismissed them as murmurings of the unhinged – of people who had seen family members ripped to shreds in front of them.
He steeled himself and walked on. He wasn't sure where he was going, just that he had to get away from New York – away from Earth, really. There were no spaceships loaded with passengers, no mystical saviors clad in spandex…just a few hundred survivors of what was called "M-Day" – or the day monsters ravaged the earth.
He knew of one pseudo-superhero, the Night Watchman. Rumor had it that he was the Nightwatcher – the vigilante crime fighter that kept the streets safe – using another name. Another went that he was nothing more than a monster himself – a giant turtle. The last – and more real – rumor said that he was a haunted man who had committed a great evil to people close to him. That he went too far in a friendly brawl and ended up killing his brother. That his family had cursed him to wander the streets, looking for ways to soothe his tortured soul.
Without warning, the wind picked up and howled around him. It was a bad omen, all right. He could feel it in his bones. What was he doing on this side of the city anyway? It was near that diner, where the cook had allegedly fought against what was called the Jersey Devil in a battle to the death. Then he had seen the cook – that tub of lard couldn't fight off a diet, let alone a devil.
He turned around and held up his knife. He saw nothing behind him. He tensed and breathed in relief. There was nothing there – just the monsters in his imagination. he shook his head and kept walking.
That would be a mistake – his last mistake.
Quicker than a heartbeat, hundreds of small, horned demons swarmed out of the shadows and latched onto his legs. He screamed as the razor sharp teeth ripped through his pants, slashing at the flesh below. He took a few wild swings with the knife – slicing one open, spearing the eye of another, bisecting one – but the still kept coming. They were crawling on each other, devouring anything they could chew through. Jack groaned – the blood loss was making him weak. As it was – the pavement was awash with his blood and bits of shredded material.
His legs snapped and he fell to the earth, feeling satisfied as ten of the demons were crushed. It was getting harder to breathe now, there was too much pain – everywhere hurting at once
With the last of his strength, he lifted his head up – not caring that his neck was exposed – and stared at the approaching figure.
The Night Watchman…
TBC…