I had thought I was going to get this chapter out quicker than I am, but it seems that I'm falling behind and I am sorry for that. I've been trying to do these chapters so they coincide with the chapters of the game. I don't know if I'll continue to follow that format because I know some of the chapters in the game get a little long. And I also have a plan in mind for an upcoming chapter, but I don't know if I'm going to follow through with it.
I fell against the newspaper rack in reception. With a grunt, I straightened up and grabbed the newspaper before limping over to the bulletin board to get the missing person poster. My legs hurt from my landing on the porch. I didn't think anything was broken. I leaned my back against the bulletin board and read the newspaper and the missing poster.
MISSING: KCPD OFFICER OSCAR CONNELLY.
DISAPPEARED WHILE ON PATROL. PATROL CAR WAS FOUND ABANDONED ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF TOWN.
The photo was of the ambulance driver. But his patrol car was found on the outskirts of town? How? Sebastian said he drove them to Beacon Mental Hospital. Come to think of it, the missing poster for Leslie said he disappeared from his locked room in the hospital.
SERIAL KILLINGS CONTINUE.
POLICE BATTLED BY CAUSE OF DEATH.
HOW CAN THERE BE ZERO TRACE OF THE KILLER?
MORE BODIES FOUND NEAR ELK RIVER COMMUNITY. RESIDENTS FEEL "TRAPPED IN THEIR HOMES".
The photo on the front page was of one of the houses in the village I came from. Elk River. I needed to remember that name. It could be important later on the down the line.
I went back to the archive room.
"You should find this useful."
I turned around and saw the nurse standing by the other room.
"This way, please." She walked around the corner.
I followed after her. The room was filled with lockers. She was waiting for me by the end of one wall.
"Miss Wembly? Do you have a key like this?" The nurse held up an old iron key like the ones from the statues. "That key will allow you to open this door. The contents are yours. Please come back whenever you need to."
With that, she walked away.
I pulled my bag around and took out the two keys I had.
"Okay. Which do I open first?" I looked at all the lockers. "Let's go with . . . this one!"
I opened a locker on the bottom row. I found some shotgun ammunition. I opened a second locker and found a box of matches. I put them in my bag and went over to the archive room.
I filed away the missing poster, newspaper, and document in their respective folders. There was another handwritten note on lined paper.
DECEMBER 2004
FIRST DAY AS A DETECTIVE.
MY NEW PARTNER, MYRA HANSON, IS A REAL FIRECRACKER. TENACIOUS AND NO-NONSENSE – MY KIND OF WOMAN. BUT I'VE GOT TO WATCH IT AROUND HER. SHE ALMOST CAUGHT ME CHECKING OUT HER ASS TODAY . . .
"Sebastian, you cheeky thing," I quipped before filing it with the other note.
I took out the map fragments to fill in the map. Like before, they shot out of my hand and took up seemingly random spots: two on the top row and one in the middle row.
The map glowed like a mirror would and I was back in the bathroom of the house.
"Guess that's the end of my reprieve," I muttered.
I walked out of the room.
A figure moved around the corner swiftly and I was looking down the barrel of a handgun.
"Élan?"
"Sebastian?"
The detective lowered his gun. "Shit, I almost shot you."
"Thanks for not," I said with a hysterical laugh.
He holstered his weapon. "What happened to you?"
"Got chased around by those Haunted."
"Haunted?" Sebastian repeated.
"Yeah, the zombie things that have all those accessories," I explained. "It's like they took their pain to the grave and it's haunting them."
"Whatever they are, they're everywhere," said Sebastian. "Can you keep going?"
"Think so," I replied. "I took a hard fall earlier. And one of them set off a bomb when I was next to it. My hearing's messed up still."
He let out a huff. "I wish I had another one of those syringes. The one I found healed me up."
I pulled my bag around. "Like this?" I held out the syringe I had found earlier.
"Exactly like that," he replied.
"I found it lying around in one of the houses I searched in the village."
"You were in the village?" asked Sebastian. "This one or Randall's Crossing?"
"Randall's Crossing?" I repeated.
"It's a little village where the people live like it's still the 1800s," said Sebastian.
"Yeah. I think I've been following behind you. A lot of the Haunted were already cleared out there."
"Did you find anything else that help us?" Sebastian asked.
"Some shotgun ammo and matches," I replied.
"Those matches will come in handy. Those . . . Haunted don't get up after they're burned. I managed to find ammo for my gun." He kept scanning the doorways for anything that moved. "You better use that syringe. It helped me. Maybe it'll help you."
I nodded. I held out my arm and lined up the syringe. There was a slight tremor to my hands and I started sweating.
"You okay?" Sebastian asked.
"I'm not good with needles," I admitted.
"Want me to do it?" he offered.
I handed over the syringe to him. Sebastian took my arm and injected me with no warning.
"You could have waited until I looked away," I told him. The effects were already kicking in. My legs stopped aching and my hearing cleared up. "That's much better."
"Let's go upstairs," said Sebastian. "We can look for supplies and take the time to regroup. Just be careful. I already disabled two bombs."
Sebastian led the way upstairs with his gun drawn. The upstairs was sort of an attic. We looked around for something we could use.
"This could be handy," Sebastian said.
"What did you find?" I asked.
"Grenade," he answered.
"A grenade? Yeah, that could be useful."
"I'll hold onto it," said Sebastian.
"Fine by me," I told him. "Finders keepers, unless one of us has something the other really needs."
There was a closed door in the darkness of the attic. We went to investigate it. Sebastian opened it slowly and immediately raised his gun.
"Who's there?" he demanded.
"No, don't shoot!"
I looked over Sebastian's shoulder and saw the doctor from earlier. He had his hands raised as he spoke quickly.
"I'm not one of 'them'. I'm a doctor; Marcelo Jimenez."
"You were in the ambulance before it crashed, right?" Sebastian asked.
"Yes, we're lucky to be alive," said Jimenez, calming down now that Sebastian lowered his weapon.
"Have you seen anyone else?" inquired Sebastian.
"My patient, Leslie." Jimenez answered. "I saw him running up ahead, but . . ."
"But?" questioned Sebastian.
"Come this way. Quietly, mind you." Jimenez led us out onto the terrace.
We followed him out.
Jimenez handed Sebastian a pair of binoculars. "Have a look for yourself. Those . . . things . . . chased me all the way into the village."
"Us, too," said Sebastian. "They're all over the place."
Jimenez pointed to the other side of the village. "Leslie went through that gate."
I could just make out the open gate he was pointing to. It suddenly dropped shut like the other ones.
"Good Lord," Jimenez breathed in horror.
"There are too many to shoot our way through," observed Sebastian.
I noted that many of them were carrying sickles, pick axes, or knives.
"One of us could try to lure them away while the other gets the gate open," suggested Jimenez.
"Two to lure away," I said, volunteering to be a distraction.
"You sure?" asked Sebastian.
"I'm useless in a fight, but I can run," I told him.
And it would give me an excuse to run around and get the collectables.
"All right," said Sebastian. "Remember, fire puts them down for good. Use those matches."
That was the other reason why I wanted to go. I could take out the Haunted playing possum.
"If we are ready . . ." Jimenez said impatiently. He turned and went inside.
"Be careful," Sebastian told me.
"You, too." I followed Jimenez down the stairs.
We were just about to go out the back when a wooden gate made of tree trunks slammed down hard and trapped us in the house.
"Agh! Damnable thing!" Jimenez cried out, pushing against it. "There is a crank on the terrace. You'll need to operate it if we're to pass through."
Sebastian must have heard us because the gate began to lift.
Jimenez ran out and picked up a torch. "Over here! Here!" he shouted, waving the torch in the air to get the Haunted's attention. "Hey! Over here! That's right, this way!" He threw the torch down and started running.
"Should have taken the torch with him," I muttered.
I ran in the opposite direction of Jimenez. There were bodies of Haunted just laying and even hanging in between buildings. I wasn't sure if I would have enough matches for all of them. I started burning them as I passed them.
I went between two buildings and found a tripwire trap. On the other side of trap were a couple of Haunted. That gave me an idea.
"Hey!" I shouted.
The Haunted turned.
I jumped up and down to get their attention. "Come and get me!"
They charged forward. I back peddled to get out of the trap's range. They ran into it and the trap blew them to pieces.
My watch vibrated. I looked down to see the compass needle spinning wildly. It pointed in one direction before snapping back around to point to another. The needle changed from black to different shades of gray while pausing in each direction. I looked around for what it could be pointing at. Then I saw two statues. One was sitting on the corner of a building and the other was hung up in some rope that spanned two houses. I wouldn't be able to reach either of them from the ground. Maybe I could find something I could throw at them.
Raspy growling made me turn around. A Haunted was coming up behind me. It started swinging the torch it was carrying wildly at me. I started running and narrowly evaded a bear trap on the ground. The Haunted stepped in the trap. It dropped the torch and I quickly picked it up. I hit the Haunted as hard as I could with the torch. It screamed as it was engulfed in flames and burned.
I ran for the barn and found the door locked. I went around to the back and found a set of steps leading to another entrance. Once I was inside I heard a familiar yelling and the shaking of chains. I started for the source of the sound, but a loud beeping startled me. I dropped into a crouch and the beeping stopped. On a beam was bomb. I could sneak under it, but there was a ladder leading up and I had a feeling I needed to go up that ladder for something. I checked my watch. The compass needle was glowing white, but I couldn't see anything nearby that was a collectable.
I huffed. "It's up there, isn't it?"
I wasn't a bomb expert and I doubted I could disarm it. I could go looking for Sebastian, but he was probably in the middle of something.
There were several gunshots.
He was in the middle of something.
I huffed again. "Let's try something else."
I could manipulate the dream to disarm the bomb. Then again, there was usually a price to doing that, such as lost time. I decided to risk it. I concentrated on the bomb.
Disarm. Disarm. Disarm.
A pair of pale gray eyes flashed in my vision.
I gasped and jerked back. "What was that?" I now had the distinct feeling that something was watching me. I looked around, but there was no one there.
The light on the bomb was now green, signaling it was disarmed.
With the bomb disarmed, I climbed up the ladder. As I did, I looked down. Chainsaw man was chained up in a stall, the chainsaw just out of reach.
"Not this guy again," I whined. "Well, you can just stay down there."
I went up to the top of the barn. Sitting innocently was another statue. I broke it open and got the key out of it.
There was something else on the table where I found the statue. It was a slingshot and a good one, too. It had the arm brace and looked to be in great shape. I could use this to knock down the other statues! I put everything in my bag and went back down. I had to tell Sebastian about chainsaw man.
Outside, I picked up a couple of stones to use in the slingshot. I backtracked and saw the two statues were right where I saw them last. I started with the one laying on the rope. I lined up my shot and knocked it down. The statue smashed on impact. I went to the second statue. I fired and it shattered.
"Shit!" I swore.
Did the key fall down or was it on top of the wall?
I ran over and let out a sigh of relief. It had fallen down. I retrieved the keys. I checked my watch again and saw it flicking between a ruined windmill and the house right next to it. I looked at the windmill and saw high up was a statue sitting on one of the crossbeams. I took another stone and loaded it up. I drew the elastic back as far as I could and took aim. The stone flew out and hit the statue. It shattered and fell down.
"Yes!" I cheered softly.
I ran to the key and picked it up.
There was a gunshot and something hit the ground next to my foot the next instant. I looked at the house next to me and saw a Haunted with a sniper rifle on the upstairs terrace. I ran and another shot impacted in front of me. I turned and ran for the house it was shooting from and hit against the wall so it couldn't make the shot. I stayed against the wall and inched for the door.
Inside in what appeared to be a dining room, three Haunted milled about. I crept low and got under the table. When their backs were to me, I continued through the room. I went up the stairs. I kept an eye out for any more Haunted, especially the one with the sniper rifle I knew was up here. There was one in one of the bedrooms which was easy to get by. The Haunted with the sniper rifle was outside on the terrace. It didn't see me with its back to me. I may not have had a weapon, but maybe I wouldn't need one. I snuck up on the Haunted as it approached the terrace railing. I got a bit of a running start and dropkicked it in the back. It let out a hiss as it tumbled over the side. I jumped up and looked over the railing. It wasn't moving at all. I reached for my last match and struck it.
"Stay lit," I prayed and I dropped it over the side onto the Haunted.
The Haunted caught fire and thrashed around before staying dead.
I turned to the door at that end of the terrace. It wasn't locked, but there was something blocking it. I pulled my leg back and kicked it in. The spindly chair that had been blocking it tumbled across the floor. The room was another bedroom. There were some matches on the night stand that I picked up. On an armchair was tape recorder, the kind with the big spools of film. I pressed the play button.
"Experiment number four, subject numbers four through thirteen," a man's voice said clinically. It was deep and rough. "Brain wave activity diminished but synchronization achieved. Subjects should begin experiencing a share consciousness. Previous trials indicated rapid deterioration of consciousness. Their minds became an exquisite mass; an amalgam of mental carrion. I'll have to connect myself if I want to experience their terror before it diminishes."
The recording stopped.
I just stood there, frozen. The subject matter of the recording was disturbing, but the voice was something I could listen to for hours. Hearing it made me feel . . . good.
"Miss?"
I snapped out of my stupor and looked around for the person who was talking to me. I looked up and saw a crawlspace for the attic. Jimenez was leaning over the side.
"Are you okay?" Jimenez asked.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," I replied. "Mind if I come up?"
Jimenez hesitated. "Sure."
There was an overturned bookshelf that looked like how Jimenez got into the attic. I climbed up and he helped me into the attic.
"I thought there was someone else down there," said Jimenez.
"Tape recorder," I told him bluntly. "It was laying on the chair down there."
"Yes," he acknowledged.
I was hot and needed some water. I got out my water bottle and took a sip, trying to ignore the pleasant tingling in my body. The water was still a little cold, but it didn't help the heat much. I pulled off my hat and poured a little water on my head.
"The hell is wrong with me?" I muttered to myself.
"Good Lord!" Jimenez exclaimed.
I jumped, thinking we were under attack. Jimenez was staring at me in shock.
"What's wrong?" I asked. I looked around for Haunted.
"Laura?" he asked.
"No," I said slowly. "I'm Élan."
"Forgive me," Jimenez said quickly. "You look so much like someone I once knew. The resemblance is uncanny!"
The door opened below us. Jimenez leaned over the side of the hole.
"How?" Jimenez started to say. He sighed. "I would ask how you got the door open to quickly, but she didn't seem to have a problem with it either."
"She?" I heard Sebastian ask.
I leaned over next to Jimenez. "Hey."
"You okay?" Sebastian asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I replied. I saw he had a shotgun slung over his shoulder. "See you found something with a bit more fire power."
"Yeah, but I don't have a lot of ammo for it," Sebastian replied.
I pulled my bag around and started looking for the shotgun ammo I picked up from the lockers. "Here. Take these." I dropped the two shells down to him. "Sorry it's not much, but that's what I could find. I have matches, too, if you need them."
"Keep them. Finders keepers unless the other really needs them, right?" said Sebastian.
"Please," Jimenez cut in, "time is of the essence. It is imperative we find Leslie before . . . anything should happen to him."
"Sebastian, you need to know; chainsaw man is here," I told him.
"What?"
I nodded. "I saw him chained up in the barn."
"Great," he said flatly. Then he perked up. "His chainsaw – I could use it to cut the chain holding the gate shut."
"What? Are you crazy?" I asked.
"It's the only thing here that's strong enough to cut through it," argued Sebastian. "Unless you have a pair of very large bolt cutters in that bag of yours."
"I wish. Ugh, I got a bad feeling about this idea."
"You got any better ideas?" Sebastian asked.
"Not really," I replied. "Did we get all the Haunted?"
"I think so," said Sebastian. "I saw the bodies you burned. I cleaned out the one house from top to bottom. That's where I found the shotgun."
"Then you get the chainsaw and we'll meet you over by the gate," I said.
Sebastian nodded and ran off.
Okay, so he found the shotgun, but didn't find the agony crossbow. I remembered one could find it in the house with the shotgun on the top floor so it could be used early in the game. If it was missed, it could be picked up in a later chapter. Right now it could be a help if one of us could find it and some bolts for it.
I started to climb down.
"Where are you going?" Jimenez demanded to know.
"Going to help," I replied, jumping the rest of the way down.
"But – what can you do?"
I glared up at him. "You're welcome to come help."
That shut him up.
I left the house and ran over to the house I didn't inspect. I hopped through a broken window into the dilapidated living area. There were Haunted bodies in a pile at the foot of the stairs with spears through them. I jumped over them and went upstairs to the top floor. Stuck back in a corner on top of a chair was the agony crossbow.
"There you are," I said.
I picked it up and almost dropped it on my foot. It was heavier than I thought it was. There was no way I would be able to lug this around with me the whole time. Now I needed ammo for it.
There was the faint revving of a chainsaw outside. I ran to the window and saw Sebastian firing his pistol at the charging chainsaw man, but it wasn't doing much good. Sebastian jumped out of the way and ran off.
I needed to get out there and help him. The crossbow had a strap on it and I put it on the shoulder my bag wasn't on and I ran down the stairs.
I ran outside and looked around for something I could use. There wasn't much around and even less I could do. It wasn't like I could sneak up on chainsaw man and burn him with a match. We needed to regroup, maybe find more ammo, and come up with a better plan. But in order to do that, chainsaw man had to be distracted so we could go hide.
I looked at the windmill and had an idea. I climbed up the ladder to the top. There was a box of scraps and a crossbow bolt sitting on the floor. The crossbow bolt looked weird. It had a pronged end instead of a normal bolt head. I picked it up and accidently pressed a button on the side. Electricity jumped between the prongs.
"Flash bolt. Perfect."
I heard the chainsaw getting closer again. I put the bolt down and grabbed the box of scraps. I propped it on the side of the windmill and saw Sebastian running around with chainsaw man on his heels.
"Sebastian!" I waved my arm over the side, wanting him to run chainsaw man by me.
Sebastian turned to the windmill.
I needed to time this perfectly.
Sebastian ran by and I shoved the box over the side. The box tumbled, scraps falling out, and it hit chainsaw man in the head. He stopped, stunned, but not down. I pulled off the crossbow.
"How do you work this thing?" I hissed, struggling to figure out how to load the flash bolt.
The chainsaw revved.
"Élan!" Sebastian cried out.
The windmill began to shake. I looked over the side and saw chainsaw man sawing through on of the legs. I kept my balance and held the loaded crossbow over the side.
There was a single gunshot. Chainsaw man stopped and turned to Sebastian. Sebastian kept pulling the trigger, but there was only a clicking sound. He had used his last bullet. Chainsaw man held up his chainsaw and revved it with a shout. I tried lining up the crossbow. Chainsaw man charged. I fired the flash bolt. It hit chainsaw man in the back with a bright flash. It also acted as a taser, stunning him.
I wasn't expecting Sebastian to run up to him and stab him in the stomach with his knife. Chainsaw man fell down, finally dead. The body dissolved into a swarm of blood red insects and flew off to the gate.
I climbed down the ladder.
"Good shot," said Sebastian.
"Thanks. I got lucky." I handed him the crossbow. "You can carry this heavy thing."
He put the crossbow on his back with the shotgun. "I'd feel better if you had a weapon of some sort."
"If you find something I can use easily, let me know," I said. "Until then, I'm stuck with my wits and my Swiss."
Sebastian picked up the chainsaw and we walked to the gate together. He started the chainsaw and sawed through the thick chain. The chain snapped and the gate opened. The chainsaw died afterwards, completely out of gas. Sebastian threw it on the ground.
"Let's go," he said.
We didn't even take a step when we heard someone yelling.
"Wait! Over here!" Jimenez came running up to us. "Wait, uh, officer. You must take me with you."
"'Detective;' Castellanos," Sebastian corrected.
"Leslie should be just ahead," said Jimenez. "It is imperative that we find him."
We walked through the gate and it slammed down behind us. We spun around. No going back that way.
Jimenez turned back to what was in front of us. "Ah, the hospice. Yes . . . Leslie was being treated here years ago. He'd come here think it was familiar and safe."
"You know where we are?" Sebastian asked.
"Just ahead is the hospice my brother runs," Jimenez told us. "He'll take us in."
"That didn't answer my question," Sebastian said flatly.
"I honestly don't know," Jimenez admitted. He began walking up the path to the hospice. "For all I know I'm losing my mind and you're just a delusion. But I'd like to think that I have a shred of dignity and an obligation to protect my patient. As an officer of the law, you should to."
"Hope his brother's not a jerk, too," Sebastian muttered quietly.
"Let's check the houses," I said. "We need supplies. You're out of bullets and I need matches."
Sebastian turned to the closest house, which was up a path to the left and away from where Jimenez was walking.
"Don't leave me behind!" Jimenez cried, running back to us when he saw we weren't following him.
I angrily shushed him with a finger to my lips. "You want everything to know where we are?" I hissed.
I noticed a lot of these houses were raised, meaning you had to go up some steps to get up to the front porch. It made me wonder if this village got flooded a lot.
Sebastian went under a porch and up the steps to the door. There was a loud banging and something large was breaking out of the front door. Sebastian jumped from the porch and ran back to us to hide behind a cart. A fat Haunted stumbled out and walked across the porch and down the steps. When it had its back turned, Sebastian came up behind it and stabbed it in the head. I dashed up the steps and to the door.
"Élan, wait!" Sebastian hissed.
I peeked in the house and found it empty. There was some ammo laying on the chair along with a map fragment. I hadn't even felt my watch go off.
Sebastian and Jimenez came in.
"Don't go running off like that," Sebastian scolded.
I handed him the ammo. "Here." I put the map fragment in my bag.
"What was that?" Sebastian asked, looking at my bag.
"Map fragment," I told him. "I've been finding them all around."
"Maybe it's a map of how to find our way out of here," Sebastian said.
"Dunno. I haven't found enough to make heads or tails of the full map," I said.
Sebastian spotted a chest in the corner. "Did you check this?"
"No."
Sebastian began to open it and there was a beeping noise.
"Close it!" I cried.
Sebastian slammed it down.
"What's wrong?" asked Jimenez.
"It's rigged with explosives," Sebastian replied.
"Can you disable them?" Jimenez asked.
Sebastian opened the chest just a crack again and unhook the wire. Sebastian lifted the lid. There was a bomb on the lid's underside, but it was green, signaling it was disabled. He reached in for whatever was in the trunk. He pulled out a single bullet.
"Heh, better than nothing," I said.
"Let's hope we have better luck elsewhere," said Sebastian.
The three of us left the house and moved on. The next place we went to was a shed. The door was marked with the Beacon logo and there was music coming from the other side of the door. Sebastian and I paused briefly before walking a little faster to the door.
There was a piece of paper tacked up on the door. I didn't get a chance to see it before Sebastian ripped it down and read over it. He shoved it into his pocket afterwards. Sebastian opened the door. There was an ornate mirror on the wall. It shattered, a few pieces of glass falling on the floor. Sebastian put his hand up against the light shining from the broken mirror and I felt myself being pulled in.
I know I bled into the next chapter in the game, but it didn't feel right just to have the gate shut behind them and leave you hanging, not that this isn't much better. Let me know what you think in the review box. I'm very curious about your thoughts to this story.
