Chapter 13: Like Rats
After Julia woke and choked down one of the MREs that Charles Taylor seemed to love they quietly discussed their plans. It was a relatively pointless conversation; there was only one place they could possibly go next. Nothing had yet to contact them and there was little reason to suspect that he would be much help. Victor wasn't sure if it was possible to kill the Fater anymore but the Order had done a superb job of reducing him to near death. If they hadn't found him down in that endless well it was conceivable that the straight jacketed demon would have never made it out on his own.
The Rissen building was their target and it was, the last the knight knew, the center of Order operations in Silent Hill. Because of Nothing they would not dare set up a permanent presence in the city anywhere near their old haunts but with him on ice it was possible they had fallen back into old habits. At the very least there would be documents, old runes, some kind of trail to follow. The only problem was that if there were more of the mercenaries the three of them were likely to be in a fire fight. This was something that Victor desperately wanted to avoid, more so than any encounter with the ghost town's nightmare fauna.
Just past what should have been noon they started to get ready for the excursion. While Julia and Chuck packed extra bullets Victor pulled on the masterfully crafted suit of armor. He did not mention to either of them just how well made it was or how perfectly it fit him. The first time he pulled on the gauntlets and his fingers lined up with the little gripping pads at the tip of each digit he knew that it had been made specifically for him alone. It was obvious that Nothing had set up this room long ago and stocked it for not just him but Julia and Chuck too. For all his might and reality altering powers no Fater had ever claimed to be able to see the future.
Pulling on the well molded helmet Victor couldn't help but think that somehow Nothing had obtained his exact measurements in a disturbingly intimate way, perhaps as he slept. Flexing his fingers in the gauntlets Victor checked his sword strap and slid his arm into his shield. There was a little scuff mark on it where the shield had deflected a bullet; he sincerely hoped that the rest of the greenish metal had the same kind of properties as his full body protector. Julia and Chuck joined him near the front of the apartment door and were both loaded to the gills with weaponry. If push came to shove at least they wouldn't be running out of ammo any time soon.
"I don't think you have enough clips." Chuck commented on Julia's full bag of pre-loaded 9mm cases.
"No idea what we'll run into. Last thing we want is to run out." she reasoned.
"How serious is this?" Chuck asked. "Should I bring that grenade belt?"
"Couldn't hurt to take a couple. Never know what we're going to run into with mercenaries on the loose." Victor answered. "We ready?" he asked them.
"Don't suppose we have much of a choice, do we?" the woman asked.
"No, not really." Victor answered while Chuck stuffed a couple of the dangerous grenades into his vest. The knight would have preferred Julia take care of the explosives but he held his objection for the moment.
"Let's get this over with then. I'm missing all kinds of day time TV for this crap."
Soon they were back out on the misty streets heading north towards the other side of town. Victor never liked heading over to that part of town partly because of the proximity to the Order's old stomping grounds and partly because the bridge was tactically horrid. The natural choke point at either end was bad enough but it was being out on the center of the water that made him nervous. There were few things in the town he could not deal with or run from if need be but the last thing he wanted to do was willingly get into the dark waters that roiled underneath the lone bridge.
It was not long before the sound of Lake Toluca reached his ears and he steeled himself for the task ahead. The gentle lapping of the distant water was more ominous than than soothing and the rest of the town was oppressively quiet. Even their muffled steps echoed like fog horns and Victor was uneasy as they drew closer to the bridge. It was bigger than he remembered when it came reluctantly out of the mist that shrouded it and seemed somehow even more run down. The control booth, a sad little structure that looked ready to fall over a decade ago, still managed to stand after all these years. Other than the stalled car right of the booth everything looked the same since he last saw it.
Approaching the bridge cautiously from the left the knight slowed to almost a crawl while they edged forward. Victor's sharp eye caught a flicker of motion by the car ahead and he set his shield down on the ground to crouch behind with only his head exposed. The other two dropped down behind him and he could hear Julia's quickened breathing just behind his ear.
"What is it?" she whispered.
"Not sure. Thought I saw someth-"
Several figures popped up from behind the car and unloaded automatic fire in their direction. Ducking his head underneath the giant shield Victor screamed, "DOWN!" to his companions and held onto the metal circle for dear life. Lined up behind his bulky body and bulletproof shield he hoped the other two would be all right as the silence was shattered by the cacophony of machine gun rattling and muzzle flashes. Killing rounds thudded into the shield with the force of sledgehammers but Victor did not falter. Thankfully the soldiers were too far away to plant all of their rounds on him or it might have been a different story.
Julia's hand rested on his shoulder and entirely too close to his head she returned fire with the bang-bang-bang! of her 9mm. Victor could barely hear when her clip clicked empty and she yelled in his ear, "Run! Run!"
Not having time to argue Victor picked himself up and turned as Julia dropped her gun and pulled a fresh one. Firing wildly towards the bridge she covered their exit as all three bolted the opposite direction. From either side of them more muzzle flashes cut through the mist and Victor could hear the angry bullets tearing through the air overhead. The other shooters were too far to even see them but they didn't need to when creating a kill zone that unfortunately the knight and his companions had walked right into.
Time slowed and ahead of him was the relative safety of a slim alley between building. The ground stretched out forever before him as he saw Chuck ahead of them almost to the mouth of the alley. If it was a dead end they were likely doomed but it was better than being shot at from nearly every direction. Victor never sprinted so fast in his life and he felt bits of asphalt pepper his legs as the random shots of the mercenaries came too close for comfort.
A few steps ahead of them Chuck skidded to a halt just past the corner of the alley and pointed his pistol past them. Victor's heart leapt into his throat when he thought the killer was finally going to betray them. When he opened fire though it was off to the side and at their attackers to cover both Victor's and Julia's last stretch to the alley. Practically long-jumping to temporary safety in his armored suit the knight scrambled to his feet to reassess the situation. Looking around frantically he saw that they had incredibly made it to the alley unharmed.
"Keep going! Keep going!" Julia drove them on and without any more hesitation Victor plunged headlong into the alley. The air behind them continued to be pepper with rifle fire and like terrified animals they fled from the sound. Dark, twisting and covered with grime the alley was their only escape route and the green armored knight could only pray that it had an exit. Rushing around one corner after the other they almost had a pile up when Victor stopped short of the disastrous end of the alley. It came to a windowless, doorless backside of a building with only a small gap that a rat would have a hard time squeezing through.
"Fuck! Fuck! We are royally, viciously fucked!" Chuck wailed.
"We're not going down without a fight." Julia promised grimly and dropped a magazine to the ground. Slamming another one in she cocked her pistol and pointed it at the ground in the direction of the alley's exit. "Get behind Vic and use him for cover. We're only going to get one chance at this."
Sullenly holstering his pistol Chuck rolled his head around on his shoulders and detached his shotgun from the shoulder sling he had it in. Taking up a position near the alley's last corner Victor drew his gleaming sword and resigned himself to waiting for the mercenaries to come for them. Lining up behind him the Canadian peeking around the knight and kept the shotgun pointed away until it was time to use it.
"Uh...guys..." Julia said from behind them. Victor turned to see her puzzled face looked down at the ground. Following her line of sight he then saw the massive, ten foot rune etched into the ground under their feet. Involuntarily sucking in a breath the knight quickly determined the purpose of the rune and his hopes for making it out of the alley in one piece were dashed against the rocks.
"Uh oh..." he breathed.
"'Uh oh'? Did you just say uh oh?" Chuck asked hysterically.
"What exactly does this thing do?" Julia demanded while Victor tried to wrap his head around the implications of the lines and symbols under his feet.
"I...don't quite know how to put this. We're standing on a giant bull's eye." he tried to explain.
"Uh...what?"
"Bull's eye for what?" Chuck wanted to know.
"We're about to have a whole lot of new friends. A river of them if I'm reading this correctly. Damn it, they set this whole thing up." Victor shook his head. "They knew we'd be heading for the Rissen house. Why didn't I think of this."
"Um, hello? I still don't understand what's going on." Julia said.
"Stand there." Victor pointed with his sword towards the other side of the alley. "When you see them, start shooting and don't stop."
"See what?"
The ground began to tremble ever so slightly and Victor braced himself for what was coming. The sound of a dozen, two dozen, a dozen dozen feet trampling on the ground reached his ears and he could see it dawn on his allies what was about to happen to them. They'd been out maneuvered, out positioned, out gunned and now about to be seriously outnumbered by the Order and their cronies.
Like an evil tide the alley was soon filled with a sea of faceless, slime-slick Silent Hill mannequin monsters. Their off-white, dirty bodies formed a stampede of flailing limbs designed to swallow up the three humans staring death in the face. Chuck's shotgun roared out next to him and there was an explosion of gore as the killer began lighting up the incoming mannequins with every trigger pull. Julia's gun was by comparison a slight popping sound which opened mortal wounds in the front ranks of charging monsters. They fell down, dead or close to it, but the herd stomped over their own kind without pause.
Chuck cursed next to him as he quickly ran out of ammo and there was nothing for Victor to do but charge ahead to meet them head on. If the monsters backed them to the wall of the dead end the alley would become a mass grave in short order. Putting his shoulder behind the shield the knight rammed into the oncoming mannequins hard enough to shatter bone. Crunching into the writhing mass of arms and legs attached where arms should have been he was stopped cold by the sheer momentum of the monsters. Leaning forward with all of his weight against the shield Victor stabbed over the top of the shield as a row of arms and legs tried to beat down on his head.
Julia's gun sounded like a typewriter with only the briefest of pauses in between her constant shots. Victor could hear Chuck pumping rounds into the shotgun but only dimly aware of it as he made the monsters fight for every inch. With each passing second they push the knight back another tiny bit even as he dumped body after body down in front of him. They swarmed past him and he was forced to back up to avoid being flanked on the right side.
Retreating precious feet he was greeted with the lovely sound of a shotgun being cocked. The pressure coming to his right was blasted in half by the vicious buckshot that shredded the monsters at such close range. With Victor plugging half the alley Chuck got to work on the rest and put every shot to good use obliterating the line in front of him. Victor kept stabbing and Julia keeping shooting and for a moment it seemed like they would be able to stem the tide.
Unfortunately guns were only as useful as their bullets and all too quickly Chuck was out again. Victor could not see over the arms thumping him on the top of the head but he was sure that they were nowhere close to running out of enemies. As Chuck dropped back to reload again Victor was forced to follow and the three of them backed further into the alley. As he kept stabbing wildly the targets fell and another took its place a moment later. The only positive in their situation so far was that the bodies seemed to be slowing the charge of the mannequins somewhat.
"This is hopeless!" Julia shouted as she dropped another clip onto the ground.
"Just keep shooting!" Victor yelled back as a leg came over his shield and glanced off his helmet.
"We have to get out of here!" Chuck needlessly called from behind Victor.
"I'm open to ideas!" the knight said as he dropped another mannequin. His arm was beginning to tire both holding up the shield and constantly thrusting the sword over it but there was no chance for rest any time soon.
"Throw the grenades!" Julia yelled.
"What!"
"I said throw the damn grenades!" she repeated at the top of her lungs.
"They'll kill us too!" Victor tried to say.
"No choice! We're dead anyway! Do it Chuck!"
Finishing his reload the Canadian mowed down the row of mannequins Victor was having trouble keeping from overwhelming them. With a momentary reprieve the killer threw his empty shotgun at the monsters before scrambling for his vest pocket. The knight prayed for a quick death if things went wrong and to not be beaten into the afterlife by a mass of slimy limbs as Chuck pulled the pin on the first grenade.
"Duck, I guess!" the Canadian yelled as he heaved the explosive like a football over the mannequin army. Throwing it around the corner he scurried behind Victor and the knight dropped fully behind his shield. He hoped Julia was protecting herself but lost the thought at the grenade went off.
Even from around the corner he felt the thud in his chest and of all the gunshot sounds he'd experienced so far this one was much louder than any of them. Victor staggered back and shook his head to clear the aftershocks of the explosion from his ears. As the sound of the world slowly came back to him and debris rained down on the top of his helmet Victor realized that the mannequins were no longer pushing forward. The rest of the alley was obscured with the dust and smoke from the terrific explosion but it was likely their best bet on getting free.
"Follow me!" he called out and charged into the remaining mannequins. Without the mass behind them pushing forward the stupid creatures were easy to bowl over and he crashed through the ones that were still standing like a rhino barreling through tall grass. The ground changed from solid to half dead and still alive mannequins as Victor led the others through the thin line of monsters still standing. Bounding over the dead he entered the blast zone of the grenade to find the ground positively slippery with blood. The stink of it was over powering but Victor spotted a sight for sore eyes: the explosion had torn a hole into the side of the alley leading into the building. It was only a foot of jagged space or so but that was their salvation. On the other side of the blast radius was a lot of blood and a flattened but recovering mass of mannequins that stretched farther than Victor could see. There were far too many for the three of them to handle even in the most favorable of circumstances.
"Chuck! The second one! Drop it right there!" Victor pointed with his sword at the hole.
"Get back!" the Canadian ordered and Victor reversed direction to knock more of the mannequins down going back towards the dead end. Julia shot the few that resisted as Chuck slid to the corner and pulled out the last grenade that would either save their lives or doom them right then and there. Turning as he occupied the same spot he started in amongst the many dead monsters he watched the killer pull the pin and ever so gently lob the grenade towards the original spot. Turning and heaving himself onto the pile of corpses and still moving limbs Chuck covered his ears as Victor did his best to do the same.
The second blast didn't hurt quite as much as the first and once his equilibrium was no longer affected he went back the way he'd just come. There was only a lone mannequin standing and he knocked it down contemptuously as Julia helped Chuck to his feet. Climbing over the dead Victor squinted through the dust cloud to see a large hole rent in the side of the alley that led to the back of some store front. He could have cried at the sight but they needed to get moving before the mannequins regained their senses.
He would have to duck down but it was still big enough of an opening to safely get through. "Move!" he shouted at the other two. "Get in there before they finish the job!"
Stumbling, covered in blood and likely harried beyond measure the killer and the pilgrim dashed for the hole. Shoving himself inside Chuck went first and Julia dropped to all fours to crawl in behind him. Sheathing his sword Victor took one last glance at the mannequin army as it tried to stand again before he backed into the opening and pulled his shield through.