CHAPTER 4
MASKING UP
Matt and Gloria, run to another floor and run into two stores. One is what is a drug store called Hammer; they take a container full of wet wipes. They then break into a clothing store called Cushing's After both wipe off the makeup, they apply on themselves, they both then go to some clothing racks. Gloria, she puts on blue runner paints and a green T shirt active wear. Matt, he puts on black runner pants and a grey T-Shirt with red lining.
Matt then says, "Alright first things first to reacquire our masks."
Gloria says, "Are you sure they're on this floor?"
"No, but seeing them supposedly taken to one of the rooms here is the only lead we've got; we need those masks if were going to stand a chance of fighting them off and escaping."
Matt then goes to the advertisement shelves and one of them has a stack of maps of the high rise and he then opens one of them up on the counter. Both Gloria and Matt are looking at the map and Matt is pointing out where they're at.
Matt says, "Alright fortunately were in the right floor, I remember seeing them take the masks at least thought this hallway."
Matt points out the hallway which is labeled.
"I also saw they had a doorway which has a card reading lock but the special kind as the outlet run both top to bottom, which means I'll have to hack in."
Gloria says, "But what if there are some vamps that occupy this floor?"
Matt says, "I know we don't know for sure, and judging from these creatures they could be anywhere and everywhere; we just have to chance it our options and time are running out."
"Ok, so what is the plan?"
"Just take my hand, follow my lead, and though this hallway we will open up and search every room."
Gloria nods despite knowing this isn't the best plan it's the only one they have; and knowing Matt she know sometimes his plans can turn good in an instant. Matt then goes to the cash register and unhooks the keyboard. Both then get out of the store, and they proceed to the hallway. Both walk fast but also very silently with their steps as both walk on their tip toes and skip a little, despite none of the bat humanoid threats in sight they know their hearing isn't far away and can come to them in seconds the second they dare make a noise.
As they go into the hallway, they see the doors to the room Matt says which are big jet-black double doors and, on the side, they are locked down by a digital card reader lock. Both go as cautiously as possible as they try to get near to break into the doorway with the locks, while at the same time keeping one eye and ear open. Matt takes the keyboard he's been carrying, and he takes the wires of the keyboard which were formerly connected to the register. The wires were broken off, Matt with his teeth he bites the sheet of the wire on the end, gives a small tug, can rip a little and then spit the sheet out and at the end of the wire the metal is a little longer and exposed. After he gets the other wire, he then inserts them into both outlets of the reader carefully, by putting them in deep and moving them till he feels there in the right place. He then types in the cyber skeleton code used for overriding all digital locks. The lock then has a green light on, and they open the door.
The room they see is a very white room, but it is a computer lab with a lot of computers on several rectangular tables. But both look and see there is one big metal suitcase that is on one big rectangular table. Matt and Gloria, they come near it and see there is a digital display in the face of it with buttons at the bottom.
Gloria, she looks at the keypad and says, 'This won't open unless with the right code and we can't break in physically as it's made of some heavy metallic source.
Matt says, "The we'll have to do it the hard way."
Matt, he takes the case and then in the room he finds adapter wires, hooks everything up to the cases outlets and to one of the computer terminals. He turns on one of the terminals and then with a mouse he searches for a specific tool he needs on the net, he then suddenly clicks one of the windows which then displays a decoding program on the terminal and then on a bar it displays a row of numbers and each of them are rapidly moving constantly displaying multiple numbers all at once at a rapid pace.
Matt says, 'It will take time, but it will happen."
Gloria looks and then sits down, she's a little anxious as she knows she is without a weapon for cover. As the computer program is running, Gloria looks and then sits down. As the computer program is running, Gloria looks at Matt's profile. As he continues to watch him carefully, she then thinks back.
Flashback: Gloria is in her mask and as she does, she is viewing with her visor each of the prop buildings which look like any dirty urbanized area of the city. And then her mask then has an alarm bell go off and she knows the Mask is warning her about danger. In one of the buildings suddenly there is a white faceless mannequin that is dressed like a 1920's gangster with a black trench coat, hat, angry face and armed with a tommy gun.
The tommy gun suddenly discharges what paintballs are coming right toward Gloria. Gloria quickly jumps out of the way of the paintballs. She's on the ground and sees the gangster mannequin is suddenly turning her direction about to discharge more. Gloria looks and sees a 1920 red sedan vehicle park nearby and she then executes a front roll just as the paintballs were coming her way.
The paintballs hit the vehicle and then Gloria scans, and she sees there is a loose hubcap. She takes the hubcap off, throws it a slight distance from her and she then summons up her aura power. The hubcap floats up and as it does, she can with her mind get the hubcap to spin. As she spins it fast enough, she then with her wind chucks the hubcap which spins in clockwise motion rapidly and then the hubcap, it then shreds the mannequin head horizontally in half. The top head of the mannequin goes then and then its body, Gloria then stands up and then walks in a direction.
As Gloria is walking and moving to what looks like the farmers market area as there are plenty of vendors on the street, suddenly she sees three other mannequin targets that each pop out of a few vendors to her left, each of them also in old 1920's gangster clothing and armed with a tommy gun, each of the muzzles target her. Gloria activates her aura, and the orange red energy then reaches one big rectangular trash can, she is able to move it toward her and then spin it vertically, clockwise and goes one direction and as the muzzles from the mannequin's discharge, and then after a while when the paintball ammo runs dry, Gloria sees her chance and then chucks the trashcan at the targets. It moves as if it's someone that has a baseball bat as the trash can swings in a fast and hard horizontal arc, the trash can the trash can is taking their hits each of the mannequins along with the vendors as both the vendors and mannequins collapse at the same time.
Gloria then proceeds but then right from behind her, she then she sees another mannequin which is in a cowboy outfit and has a six-shooter. She then envelops her whole body with the Aura energy and as she does each of the paintballs, they hit her but never get though the aura shield she has covered her whole body with. The mannequin cowboy discharges all six of it's chambers toward Gloria, and as soon as all six are empty Gloria she then executes a spinning right hook kick and the kick knocks the head of the mannequin off completely, making the head fly fifteen feet away and it's body then goes down
Matt is coming toward her direction right in front of her and he has his mask on. Gloria has her mask on her hands, she looks at Matt and says, "This mask tech is truly something."
Matt takes off his mask and has it in his hands, he looks at her and says, "Thanks."
"People like you never cease to amaze me, one thing I always like to know is how you ever dreamt of things like this and how you find the means to make them reality."
Matt says, "It's hard to say, I guess it's just that premortal need since the beginning of time, to go further than ever before, to break the limits set for them."
Matt, he looks at his spectrum mask and says, "Though one thing I've never dreamt of, was for these masks to be used for the purposes we are using them for right now."
Gloria notices a small hint of sadness.
Gloria comes to him and says, "Your dream for this mask tech can still come true."
Matt looks up and Gloria continues and says, "Despite the fact the tech is being misused by VENOM it's also still in the right hands using them for all the right reasons."
Back to the present: As the final numbers of the safe are being dialed in, suddenly there is a click on the safe. Gloria gets out of the chair and comes to Matt. Matt, he then opens the safe and then takes out two masks. Matt hands Gloria's hands first and she has it in her hands which is the color gold and looks like a divers mask. Matt then has his mask in his hand which is red and grey, a ski like visor, and a mask designed to look like the kind for radiation suits.
Gloria says, "Boy am I glad to have this back in my hands."
Matt says, "Me too."
Both then suddenly hear inhuman yells which pierce though the building and go to the sky. Both Matt and Gloria waste no time as they both quickly put on the masks. The masks automatically come on just as one of the vampires they punch their fist through the door. And soon it is joined by many more fists that are rapidly turning the door into sawdust. Soon there is no door and then the white bat humanoids then have their eyes set on both Matt and Gloria.
Matt immediately uses the Spectrum light flash which blinds three of the vampires, the light which equals that of sunlight Matt sees has burned them a bit as all three are smoking a bit as if they accidentally ran into a forest fire as he sees burn marks and their eyes are smoking with some black blood leaking out from their sockets.
As both disappeared, the three vampires then uncover their damaged eyes, and they are nothing but bloody gushing sockets. But through their sockets two white bulbous eyes slowly move up and take the places of their lost eyes. After they regained new eyes, all three of the bat like humanoids screamed out.
Meanwhile both Matt and Gloria run throughout the floor, both having no specific plan except to get as far away as possible. Both see ahead of them there are two big glass doors, they realize these lead to a garden nursery as they can make out plants behind the sheets of blurry glass, both go into it, feeling it's their only chance to hide. Gloria and Matt, they are in the Garden Nursery. They look and see there are plenty of plants of all kinds from the exotic plants you can't get anywhere else as if they came from a rainforest. Also, in one area there is a multicolor of flowers. Both then go over to some thick bushes and then they both cling together and hide as they see from the small opening there are a couple of dirty bare albino feet with tall nails that are searching around for both. As they are hiding, Matt with his spectrum scope in his mask is locating for other weapons but also some opportunities of escape or to fight.
But then just before both are about to make their move, there are two hands that come from above and then lift Matt. Matt is lifted by his shirt and then immediately thrown to another part of the garden nursery. Gloria is about to engage her aura but then she is suddenly grabbed and thrown into another part of the nursery.
Meanwhile, Matt is recomposing himself and just as he is about to get up, suddenly he is pinned down by the vampire but then with his spectrum vision he is looking for a way to get out of his predicament. He sees there is a power control panel terminal in the nursery as his spectrum mask scanned it. He then tries to get up but is unable to as suddenly the creatures long sharp nails suddenly imbed into his arms, and they make a straight incision cut running all the way down both his arms doing damage. The cuts sting Matt but he must trudge through the pain, and he continues to struggle as Gloria is struggling. Matt he is wincing in pain as the vampire is cutting both his arms straight through with its nails. Matt can feel every inch of pain, and he is trying to find with his hands something to use.
Suddenly Matts' right hand feels something that is circular but thin enough to have in his hand. The vampire it then pulls out it's nails from Matts arms and then it brings the nails up to its mouth and then opening its mouth filled with razer barred fangs, the creature then brings out its long black worm like tongue that just wraps itself and licks the nails which have Matt's blood covering them.
The creature savors the flavor as it moves its tongue on its fingers slowly and smoothly. Matt seizes this opportunity, and Matt suddenly grabs the object near his right hand and out of subconscious reflex matt drives the object straight to where the heart would be located. The creature suddenly stops and then looks at what has been lodged into its heart and so does Matt as he had no idea what it was. The object was a wooden stick broken off the section in the nursery which harbors a series of trees called Hathorne trees. The creature's wound then shoots out a geyser of black blood which hits Matt's direction and then suddenly two of its arm's explode and both side geyser out and then suddenly the creature just explodes completely making on big blood splat, most which covers and hits Matt.
Meanwhile on another part of the greenhouse, one of the vampires, flies toward her and catches her. She is in mid flight in the air, as the vampire rears his head back and has its rows of teeth grow bigger as big as any spikes in caves. The vamp then moves its head in a fast thrust and is about to bite into her neck and once it does suddenly Gloria has her aura function go to shield mode.
The vampire has its teeth bite down on Gloria's neck only the break theme completely as the aura shield function was activated the second it did. The vampire it then roars out in pain while spewing and spiting out black blood coming form it's teeth stumps. The vampire then drops Gloria and then flies away. But as it's trying to fly away Gloria uses her Aura power which envelops the creature and then sends it crashing straight toward one of the trees but impaling itself on one of the branches that go to its heart.
After that it explodes making most of the garden into a black mess, some of the mess covering Gloria. Both Matt and Gloria see each other and hold each other for a moment feeling small relief from their scuffle. But suddenly they hear a distant screech and know their troubles are far from over. Matt looking around, scanning with his mask for any other possible exits, but then he looks toward a direction. They hear the screeches grow louder which are coming fast toward where they are.
Matt immediately takes the hand of Gloria and then leads her toward the windows. Gloria sees where Matt is going with this and then she with her Aura power aims it toward a slightly giant rock used as a decoration for the garden. She can fling it with his mind and the rock crashes right through and makes a gigantic hole right though. After the hole is made both Matt and Gloria simply jump out the window.