Warning: parts of this chapter are quite disturbing. although not totally just bear that in mind.
The glow of the nearby village of Slane (or at least that's what they considered it to be) gradually grew brighter and the unyielding bite of the winter cold became just a tad more forgiving. The dull hum of cars on a nearby road caught Wolverines attention and he looked in that direction, beads of small lights glided across in the distance then suddenly disappeared behind hills. While Wolverine checked the surrounding area for wanderer's or people who may question their reasons for being here Jean every now and then scanned the area with her mind. Peace was what she mostly discovered, a little adolescent fear that a light had been turned off.
One mind confused her though, it was like white noise – she recognised it as a mental wall and found that if she tried to gain entry she would alert the individual to their presence. Although they were in no way attempting to harm this new mutant just alerting them to the fact that somebody had the ability to go into their mind would be distressing enough.
Remy was also checking every now and then, his walls always up within his mind but slackened so he could feel gentle waves of emotion. People's emotions were so lacking in control when they slept and totally releasing his shields would have sent him reeling in the pains of people's nightmares or bliss. Like Jean he had felt something out of place, one singular emotion that stood out from the others – fear and freedom intermingling but also a sense of a losing battle.
"Your sensing that to Remy?" He blinked quickly as he looked to Jean, his brows hurt from the frown he'd been wearing. The Cajun nodded,
"Yeah, like de Professor said" He replied, keeping his thoughts on the signal. They continued to walk through the darkness; some of the areas underfoot became uneven as they reached a long silhouette of cast iron gates. Beyond them appeared to be a graveyard.
"Dis thing go on forever" Remy awed, putting cold hands onto the rusting bars "gotta get over it" Jean nodded,
"They're beyond the graveyard – not far now though" The jump over was simple for the three mutants and soon they stood within the confines of an aging graveyard. Wolverine sneered at the stench of death that surrounded them.
"So where do we go from here?" Wolverine questioned, waiting for the other two to pinpoint their target.
"I think... from our location we go North East" Jean replied, a finger stroking her temple as she opened her eyes, whatever noise this mental wall was creating was giving her a headache. Remy stayed quiet - feeling the mutant's emotions wavering, curiosity? Something wasn't right; he felt heat underfoot and the unquestionable sound of heartbeats. He looked to Jean and Wolverine who had already started walking ahead, those two couldn't feel it? He carried on to follow them up, hearing the beats still but not wanting to arouse unwarranted panic in the other two. The sounds must have been linked to this new mutant.
After a few more minutes they made it to a cobbled path, suggesting the centre of the somewhat huge graveyard. Wolverine sniffed the air, a coppery tang making is presence known,
"Blood" His voice cut the silence between the three,
"Blood?" Jean tilted her head slightly, Wolverine nodded,
"Yeah... Someone's died here not long ago" He continued, sniffing the air and looking to Jean, "Bodies gone though, it's just remnants" Jean nodded,
"I guess the cops would've taken it away" She moved into the centre of the cobble path, her mind wandering to the wall that still appeared to be up. If anything it showed that the person was still alive, "We go east now" she followed the path to the right, the two men joining her.
Remy still couldn't get the heartbeat out of his head, but he didn't think whatever was creating it was aware. He felt the sharp pang of guilt but then it was smothered by something else – this was confusing. It was like two beings in one, no more than two, many voices but they were all centred in one being. He overheard Jean and Wolverine talking but was too distracted by his own musings. He already knew the direction before Jean even said.
They reached an arched wrought iron gate signalling the end of the cemetery. The road was widened to accommodate a comfortable distance between the residents of the houses in front and the graveyard behind. They noticed that a lot of the houses had hedges in front so that they couldn't see the eerie place; however there was a house further down the road which seemed to be bare of any foliage except for a few rose bushes.
"I think that's the place" Jean commented, her eyes gazing at the shadows house. She shivered as some disturbing feeling crept up her spine,
"You feel it to chere?" Remy walked up to the red head, she frowned and nodded, "Somethin' not right and we not even dere yet" He scratched the back of his head, "Been gettin' weird vibes from whoever is in dat house since we got in de graveyard"
"And you didn't tell us?" Wolverine came up behind from scanning the area, he frowned and Gambit,
"I didn't want to spook yah" He smirked, receiving a sneer from wolverine.
"If there's something that you sense is out of place you tell us. Anything could happen" Wolverine scolded him, although the Cajun hadn't gone on many missions with them it had been told enough times to him during training. The Cajun shrugged nonchalantly,
"I guess I must 'ave been distracted" he replied, Jean looked to the two men sensing Logan was about to respond with something none to civil she intervened,
"We better get going, we aren't doing any good just standing here" the two men looked to Jean in front and back at each other, both returning fowl expression before following the red head. Suddenly Jean stopped, her heads held out slightly on either side to stop Gambit and Wolverine,
"Someone's coming" she spoke in a hushed tone, the mind waves of two men were approaching and from the images they were cops "hide!" she warned, Jean slid behind a car while Gambit and Wolverine chose similar hiding places closer to where the two men were coming from. Jean peered over from behind the cars bonnet, mentally telling the two other mutants to stay put. They heard them before they saw them, Jean sensed they had been on their break from duty and were now returning to their post. Their post? She frowned and looked to the house
"Damn it" she cursed to herself, she mentally scolded herself for not being so vigilant. Gradually the two cops came into sight, chatting casually to each other as they stopped outside the house. At that point they subdued, Jean could sense why, she had long before they had made it to the house. It just emanated death and sadness, but also that sense of freedom that the professor had talked about. She decided to make her move, the cops obviously still unaware of their presence she thought it better she disarm them rather than the more physical approach of Logan and Remy. With a flick of her wrist she sent the two policemen flying at the cemetery gates, forcefully but just enough to knock them out.
She allowed Wolverine to check the two policemen before coming out of hiding herself,
"Just unconscious" he muttered, "Be out for a while" he smirked at Jean, "you pack a punch red" Jean giggled,
"You know I do" she smiled before scanning round for anymore civilians that may have been around. For now she could only do a localised amnesia effect for the events that had happened here. But for that she'd need to find out what it was they were dealing with.
Remy had come out from his hiding place but had not gone to meet up with Logan like Jean had. Instead when he'd turned around he'd come right in contact with the house. It was the strangest thing he'd ever seen. The house had been turned into an almost decaying husk; deep red vines curled their way out of broken windows like ivy leaching into the brick work. The garden was long and many of the paving stones cracked with the vines seeping out of them. He noticed the rose bushes were awash with life and small moths and butterflies flitted about, weaving in and out of the house and glinting in the moonlight "mon dieu..." he gasped.
Jean turned round, rattled from her mental scan by Gambit's obvious sign of unease; she walked over to him,
"Gambit what's the – oh my..." she paused in mid sentence; her hand clutched on the arm of Gambits duster as she stared at the sight before her,
"What the..." Wolverine came to meet them, his mouth agape and just as dumbfounded as Jean "never seen anythin' like that before"
"Me neither Mon ami" Gambit finally spoke, tilting his head to Wolverine. One of the butterflies came closer to the group, hovering in front of Jean she lifted a finger up cautiously and the butterfly decidedly used it as a perch. Jean blinked at it somewhat bemused before it flitted of,
"Ow!" she gasped, holding her hand to her chest,
"Jean?" Wolverine came up to her defensively and looked down at her,
"You ok chere?" Gambit eyed her hand curiously as she held it out,
"Yeah... it cut me" A thin sliver of red appeared on the red heads finger, she brushed it away quickly, "Well that was weird" she commented,
"There's loads of those things" Wolverine turned back around to the house, watching the small insects dart in and out of the house and the proximity of the house to them. It would be a long stretch.
"We just gotta be quick den no?" Gambit smiled confidently, flexing the tendons in his arms as he clenched and unclenched his hands. Wolverine smirked back,
"For once me and you are on the same page bub" Jean rolled her eyes.
The race to the house became stranger as soon as Wolverine set his foot on the paving stones. Gambit heard a gasp and suddenly the insects became erratic in their movement,
"Shit!" Wolverine weaved in and out of the clusters of insects, using his claws to swipe away the pests. However not all were caught and wings painfully bit into the ferals skin disappearing just as quickly as they'd been inflicted. Gambit and Jean quickly followed, Jean creating a force field around her and Gambit while Wolverine cleared the front door where there seemed to be less of the insects. Soon they were all inside, Gambit got out his cards waiting for anything bigger to attack them. Jean looked about her, sensing the power emanating from the second floor. All three suddenly gagged at the scent that attacked them, an increasing stench of blood and decay,
"What the hell?" Wolverine grabbed onto a wall, pulling it back as if pained as the wall pulsed in his grip. He stared in fascination at the wall and then to the rest of the house. All the walls were covered in the red vines, some of the larger ones pulsed as if they were inside a heart.
"This is like a nightmare" Jean gasped shakily as her senses tried to get used to the powerful smell. She held onto her knee's as her hair fell from her shoulders – she felt the emotional strain of a person upstairs, it was like they knew that the three of them were here.
Remy's head was pounding, his empathic abilities being stretched to the limit. This was where all those emotions were coming from, the smell no more assaulted him than the violent thrusts of anger, sadness, joy and panic did.
"We've got to get upstairs" Jean coughed and threw her head back up, grabbing hold of the slippery banister. The two men nodded, Wolverine making his way up, then Jean and Gambit at the rear allowing whatever was up there to take their anger out on them while Jean subdued the uncontrolled powers. The three suddenly felt the walls shudder, and paused in their ascent,
"What the hell was dat?" Remy questioned for all three before strange strangled noises began downstairs. Remy's eyes widened as he turned around to be met with three pairs of eyeless faces. He yelled before automatically throwing a charged orb at the rotting corpses.
"Run Up Now!" He shouted at the two others as continued to hold back the nightmarish creatures. Jean held back a scream as she followed Wolverine up who was ready to take down anything similar. The insects were more numerous as they reached the second floor, the landing almost looked like a cave as the vines blocked out all sunlight. She felt the mutant power emanating from the door furthest from them and directed Wolverine in that direction.
The sounds of explosions downstairs continued to shake the house as Remy's cards bit into each soulless body that came at him. He was confused as fuck as to what was happening, how could a mutant create something like this? Another corpse was released from the red walls and ran at Gambit before exploding in a mixture of blood, organs and broken bone.
The butterflies and moths now charged at Wolverine and Jean with little mercy, Jean created a shield in front of Wolverine allowing them to move forward but some of the insects still sliced through cutting both Wolverine and Jean. They finally got to the door and Wolverine growled frustratingly as he noticed it had been more or less sealed by the vines. With little mercy he dug his claws into the veins and wood behind, ripping away at wet red and wood.
Remy suddenly heard what could only be described as a series of blood curdling screams emanate from upstairs. They weren't Jeans, thank god, but they were still distinctly female. Now the bodies disappeared into the vines on the walls and the floor and Gambit was left, sticky with blood that had fell onto him. A sudden howl came from somewhere in the house,
"Merde" Gambit cursed under his breath, his stance ready for whatever was coming. The house began to shake as something large came closer. He inadvertently gulped in anticipation as something shadowed the door to what could only be described as a black hole with shafts of light coming from the room he was in. The creature was huge, pushing on seven foot and was male. Its chest muscles flexed as it strained against the series of belts that encased its well muscles arms and torso. It wasn't rotten like the previous things but was covered in blood, its decidedly dark hair dripped with the stuff. Suddenly it snapped its head up to gaze yellow eyes at Gambit who flinched at the action. With a roar it snapped its bonds and produced a cleaver like sword from behind its back. Gambit charged a card as the creature lunged at him.
Jean snapped her head back as she heard a horrific roar come from downstairs. She bit her lip praying for Remy to be alright. With one last swing of his claws and then a punch to the remaining pieces of door Wolverine had gained entry into the room. His breath was ragged as his eyes stopped on a form huddled in the corner,
"Jean" he breathed as the woman came through the door; he motioned towards the corner,
"Oh my..." she put a hand to her mouth as she laid eyes on the creator of this nightmare.