Chương 62: Book Two - Chapter 12: Hope It's Worth It

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ZONE 2 INCINERATION: 03: 07: 08"This is more of the same fuckin' shite," Gen said, turning away before I even had a chance to peek inside.

"True. Literally and figuratively," Kane dryly noted. He followed his wife back into the main hallway, where Liam was still lingering. Alcove two was also filled with rotting garbage and piles of trash bags; many of them torn open and contributing to the stomach-churning stench that permeated the air. It hadn't gotten any easier to handle, despite what TV cops said about getting used to the stink of a decaying corpse. Isabel and I gagged and took a step back.

Tre cracked his knuckles, which was not something I thought he could still do, but whatever was under his vinyl made an audible creak. He glanced down at his hand, as surprised at the sound as I was. SURVIVOR'S EYE ACTIVATED Cooldown: 02: 00: 00 Survivor's Eye usually pointed at something specific, like a propane tank with a faulty valve, or a potential trap. It had never fired into a room that held nothing but trash. The sound dropped out; Tre and Isabel slowed to almost still, but nothing lit up.

Then a fine blue line traced the edge of something circular on the far wall, barely raised off the steel, so flush I could have walked past it a billion times and never seen it. I waded toward it through trash bags that gave way slowly, like they were underwater. I was close enough to touch the thing when the sound returned, and time snapped back to normal speed. Tre yelped.

"How did you do that?" Everyone was looking at me.

"Do what now?"

"You teleported, Nora!"

"Oooh!" I laughed.

"I didn't teleport. Survivor's Eye slows time."

"You guys cool?" Liam appeared in the doorway, followed by Gen with Kane on her shoulder.

"Nora teleported!"

"Whoa!"

"Tre!"

"Sorry," Tre said.

"Nora looked like she teleported."

"Nothin' then, eh?" Gen asked.

"Hard no," Isabel said, extending the 'o' sound a bit longer than necessary. Kane ran a claw across the stubble on the ridges of his chin.

"Alles klar, dann los." I clapped my hands.

"Stop!" It worked. All eyes were on me.

"I didn't teleport. But I did find a button on the wall." They leaned in. Nobody moved. Tre and Isabel from the edge of the trash, Liam and Gen from the doorway, Kane craning over her shoulder, the whole group tipping forward at the waist like that would close the ten feet between them and the wall.

"Where?" Tre squinted at nothing.

"Right here. Where my finger is." Isabel moved first, pushing through garbage to join me.

"Oh shit. She's right."

"Should I press it?" A round of blank stares from the peanut gallery.

"Come on, guys," I said, not trying to hide my annoyance.

"A little help?"

"Survivor's Eye flags hazards, right?"

"Yeah." Tre nodded.

"So, it's a trap."

"Everything here's a trap," Gen added.

"Doesn't mean we don't need supplies."

"You don't know pressing this leads to the cache," Isabel said.

"Aye. I don't. But either we push it and see what happens, or we just wasted fifteen minutes for nothing." Gen put a hand on my shoulder.

"Whatever fate awaits, we've got a solid group to handle it, nah?" Behind her, everyone watched expectantly. Tre hopped up and down on his heels, and Liam, leaning against the threshold, did his best impression of a "chill dude." Kane smoothed out his combover. All of them looked at me like I had an answer. But all I had was a fucking button, no clue what it would do, and a growing desperation for healing supplies. Beside me, Isabel anxiously rubbed her collarbone.

"Do it." I pressed the goddamn button. My LifeLine buzzed. MAP UPDATED – CACHE 1 REVEALED A small, flashing treasure chest icon appeared in the previous alcove, back where we just were.

"Motherfu—" A low rumbling cut me off, followed by the high-pitched squeal of metal grinding against metal. Then that stopped.

"We did it?" Tre asked tentatively. Isabel walked out of the alcove, back toward the main hall.

"We did something."

"It's in the first alcove," I said.

"Where we already spent fifteen minutes digging."

"But we revealed the cache!" Kane looked at Gen, the ridges over his eyes raised.

"Das ist gut!"

"Except we have to backtrack, love." She gave him a tender pat on the head.

"Time's wastin'." The group migrated out of the alcove, back into the main hall, all of us staring back the way we came. It was, as we'd gotten very used to, dark as fuck. I could barely make out the dip in the smooth wall where the entrance to the first alcove was, but it had only been about a five-minute walk. I was fairly confident that if I ran, I could make it there and back in less time. My back injury could throw that whole plan out the window if I tweaked it wrong.

"I'm going to run down and run back," I offered.

"What happened to not splitting up?" Tre demanded. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"It took us five minutes to walk here. I can run there and back in way less."

"We. We can run there," Tre said, looking up at me with wide eyes.

"Sorry, duder." I knelt so we were face to face, holding my face steady despite the twinge in my back.

"I don't mind carrying you, but you're pretty heavy. It'll slow me down." He kicked at the ground.

"You're not going by yourself, Nora."

"I'm not very fast," Isabel shared.

"Y'all for real, right now," Liam's voice boomed in the quiet corridor.

"You got the Whisperwood Marlins fuckin' varsity team linebacker right here." I couldn't hide my surprise at his volunteering.

"Yeah?" Liam laced his fingers behind his back, stretching his chest.

"The one thing I'm good at is sprinting and slamming into guys with my head."

"We sprint down, grab the cache, and sprint back," I explained. Liam cracked his neck.

"We?" And then he took off without me." Motherfucker." I ran after him. Well, I tried. A grinding in my lower spine slowed me way the fuck down, but my legs kept moving, deciding on their own that pain wasn't a good enough reason to stop. The fact that I was running at all was the Caretaker's Endurance boost. It still hurt like hell. Liam was a few feet from the midpoint of the corridor already, and despite my full-tilt boogie to catch up, I lagged.

"C'mon," Liam said, looking back at me over his right shoulder. Picking up speed, I closed the distance between us, boots slapping the ground, each impact sending a jolt through my vertebrae, causing them to grind against each other. Liam stole another glance, saw me gaining on him, and tucked his head, pushing harder off the ground.

"That all you got!" The wall bulged, then split, and a hulking slab of flesh stepped out directly into his path. A thick mound of human bodies, gruesomely fused into something man-shaped. Liam hit it at full speed and bounced backward into me. We went down in a tangle. He was up first, absurdly fast for a guy his size.

"I'll get the cache," he said.

"Go!" I screamed. Liam ducked low and cut hard for the gap between the thing and the corridor wall. It turned toward him, slow and laborious.

"HEY!" I got a hand on the wall and shoved myself upright.

"Over here, big boy!" It turned, and my HUD outlined the creature, an infobox popping up beside it. NEW ENTITY DETECTED! MEAT MAGNET" All the parts of all the people." Faces pressed up out of it while it came at me. A cheekbone here, an open mouth there, undulating from within like there were people trapped inside. Several whole faces surfaced, screamed, and went back under before I could decide whether I recognized them. Three steps in, it put down a third leg.

It grew out of where a hip should be, bending wrong at a joint legs don't normally have. It planted that stump wide like a kickstand, shifting its weight onto it. The Mother's Ruin appeared in my hand. I never got a chance to swing it. The thing's arm came around faster than something that large should move, and caught me across the ribs. It sent me flying. In the half second before I hit anything, I shoved Mother's Ruin back into inventory, because I was not losing another weapon to getting tossed across a room.

I landed on my back. Again. Grit my teeth so hard I thought I chipped my upper right molar. Whatever the compression frame and the last salve had bought me, the ground took it back. Something that had been merely off before went way past wrong, and I bit the inside of my cheek to stop a scream. I'm at the alcove. Liam's voice in my head. There's like an open compartment in the wall! I've got the bag. Boots, two sets, close and fast, appeared on either side of me.

Gen got there first, Strobe Blade already up, and she planted herself between the Meat Magnet and me without breaking stride, the blade catching what little light there was and throwing it back in a way that made the thing flinch. Isabel dropped to a knee beside me, already digging a salve out of her jacket.

"No," I said, or tried to. It came out more air than words.

"Not a discussion." She was already peeling the seal.

"We'll only have two left."

"Liam's got the cache, so shut up and take it." She said it firmly and pressed the Salve into my hand. Isabel backed toward the hallway wall, putting distance between herself and the thing. She had the empty revolver and a knife. Somebody had to be still standing with supplies when this was over, so I didn't blame her for choosing to stay safe. Kane and Tre had bailed off their rides the moment the thing appeared, and found each other without discussion.

They were both small enough to move where the thing couldn't easily grab them. They worked it like it was rehearsed, but I knew they hadn't had time for that. Tre took a running start and slid between the thing's legs, ducking his head to avoid colliding with one of the creature's two dangling... dicks? It was unclear if that was what they were, but I was fairly sure that's what they were meant to be. He came up on the other side, already slashing at the backs of its calves.

That thing's weird cock almost knocked my eye out, Tre yelled, straight into all our heads. Kane sprinted the opposite direction, crouching low before launching himself upward, small and light enough to get real height, landing square on its chest, claws digging in for purchase." Ich schlitz dich auf, du Fickfresse!" Even as a non-German speaker, it sounded badass. The Meat Magnet's skin gave where it should have torn, stretching under Kane's weight like a tarp with water pooled in it.

A face came up under his foot. Close enough to the surface that I could see the mouth working against the underside, opening and closing.

"It is nibbling my foot," Kane yelled. Kane anchored himself with one clawed hand, and I got my first look at his weapon, a Toothbrush Shiv. It was exactly what it sounded like. The handle was filed to a nasty point, bristle end wrapped tight in heavy-duty white duct tape, filthy now with dirt and blood and whatever else he'd put it through. He drove it down into the face under his foot. Punched through the cheek, and when he twisted, a thin ribbon of obsidian goop spurted out along the blade.

Kane pulled the shiv free, and the face sank away under the skin, taking the hole with it. Below him, the paring knife had shredded the back of this thing's legs enough that Tre was splattered with black blood, making him look like a Jackson Pollock painting, and injuring the thing enough that it lurched off balance for the first time. They weren't doing a massive amount of damage, but they kept the thing distracted long enough for me to down the salve.

Warmth spread through me, not the full fireworks but enough, the agony receding to uncomfortable yet manageable stiffness. HEALTH: 85% (STABLE) I tested my back, raising my arms above my head. Stiff. No instant agony. I'd take it. I've got it! I've got the fucking cache! Liam, over the Mindbleed, delighted. Gen, Strobe Blade half-raised, had her eyes fixed on a spot high on the creature's shoulder where a face had settled, slack and unformed. I didn't know the face. Gen clearly did.

"Kelli?"

"Gen?" Kane's voice, from up on the thing's chest, trembled with concern. She swung the Strobe Blade, and the corridor lit up in a rhythmic, nauseating strobe that pulsed faster the harder she pushed the swing, until the creature's eyes, however many of those it had, went unfocused and closed. I'd swung that blade. It fought you the whole way through. Gen took it across her body like it weighed nothing and put it into the seam under Kelli's face, where two bodies had been stitched together at the shoulder.

The arm came away at the joint and hit the floor with the fingers still working. Then the stump sealed itself over, wet tissue sliding across the gap, as a new limb started pushing out from underneath.

"Oh, it's growing another one," Tre said, from somewhere near the thing's ankle.

"Love that for us." Mother's Ruin came back to my hand. Then I was moving, because Liam came around the corner at a dead sprint, duffel slung across his body, dark green canvas covered in mysterious grease stains I didn't want explained, barreling straight for the gap between the creature and the wall like he intended to go through it if it didn't get out of his way.

"Kane, move!" I yelled, putting everything I had into the swing. The gremlin backflipped off the monster, and the Mother's Ruin hook sank into the Meat Magnet's torso, nestling deep between its two ribcages. It staggered a full step sideways, off balance on whatever passed for its feet, and the gap Liam needed widened. He didn't slow down to say thank you. Tre scrambled out from between the thing's feet, launched himself onto the duffel bag as Liam barreled past them.

"Don't drop me!" Tre hollered, climbing from the duffel to wrap his arms around Liam's neck. Liam didn't break stride.

"Don't choke me!" My hook was still deep in the monster's midsection, and I used the leverage to smash the thing against the opposite wall.

"Get out, Tre!" He was already on the go, taking the same path around the creature Liam had.

"Clear!" I yanked the Mother's Ruin out sideways, through flesh and bone and whatever else was packed in there. The Meat Magnet screamed with six voices at once and came apart along the seam I'd opened. It split into two masses. Then four. Then more of them, each one staggering upright on malformed legs, faces settling into place like melted Crayons hardening. NEW ENTITY DETECTED! MEAT MEN" Did I forget to mention it can multiply?" Most of them were wrecked, half-melted, strangers. One of them wasn't.

He was in the middle, face slack, but I knew this one; a boy who'd died defending someone he didn't have to defend." Austin?!" Isabel's voice was a breathless whisper. Her body went rigid, leaving her motionless as the thing rushed her. FEAR: 68% (PANICKED) Fuck. Not now. I closed my hand around her wrist and basically dragged her down the corridor, ignoring my damaged spine threatening to drop me to my knees." RUN!" Gen screamed, holding the Strobe Blade up high.

Kane clambered up her back and over her shoulder, settling in behind her neck as she let off another flash. I turned my face away from it, saving my vision for the dark ahead.