I woke up one morning and the leaves were black. The sky was blood red, and my hands were ashen grey. The world around me carried on, but the sounds were muted and faint. All of the colour had been drained. I felt as if I was only partially there. I was a voice on the wind, and a shadow in the periphery. People went about their business on the street, just as they had always done. But I was dead to them.
"Alright bro dogs! Beers all around, let's get this shit started"
The sun was still up and Jason Durant was already cracking open three bottles of beer for himself and his two housemates. It was 5 o'clock on October 31st, and although it was just the three of them for now, they were well prepared for an all-night party. The fridge was stocked with beer, and another case was sitting on the floor nearby. Glass bottles of cheap whisky and vodka lined the kitchen counter next to plastic bottles of coke and ginger ale.
Chris Noble was the first to reach for a beer, though he did not stand up from the couch where he was lounging, due to the open laptop that was unfolded across his legs. He took the beer in one hand while he was still typing something with the other hand. Chris and Jason had been friends since grade school, and when they ended up going to the same college they decided to rent a house basement together. The basement had three bedrooms, and so the third man sharing the place was Kurt Sharma, a fellow student with whom Chris shared some classes, and a solid gym buddy.
As it was Halloween, everyone was in costume. Chris was dressed in frilly victorian garb with powdered cheeks and plastic fangs, trying to pull off the Tom Cruise look from Interview with the Vampire despite his hair being short and dark, not blond and flowing like Lestat. The costume was well made and it looked sharp on him, though it was also the same one that he had worn last year and the year before, with some elements going all the way back to his high school goth phase.
Across from Chris, Kurt was sat facing the wall-mounted TV, fully engrossed in a shooter game that was pumping the sound of rapid-fire gunshots all through the room. Kurt was dressed in leather pants, with thin strings around his biceps and a plastic khopesh at his hip. Naturally, he had chosen the Scorpion King as his costume so that he would have an excuse to go shirtless and show off his muscles for all the girls he would be meeting tonight.
Ever the weeb, Jason was dressed as a character from his favourite anime, the dark elven wizard Kurai, from an obscure series called Saikyo no Yume Kishi-dan. It was a good fit for his relatively short stature and dark skin tone. The costume's striking asymmetric robe and flowing white wig made for a striking appearance, especially when he posed for photos with a spread of kunai daggers in his hand. Kurt and Chris both thought it was a bit lame, though, that Jason looked like he belonged at a cosplay convention, not a college party.
As Jason came over to the couch, Kurt finally reached out to take his beer while he was waiting for his character to respawn. He took a swig and said to Chris, "Yo when are the girls supposed to show up?"
Chris looked up from his laptop and replied, "Bianca told me they'd be here before sunset, but you know how women are"
"They'd better get here before sunset!", Jason blurted out, "That's when the game launches. The intro is gonna be sick, I'm telling you, man"
Kurt gave an equivocal look and shrugged, turning his attention back to the game. "Whatever dude, all this augmented reality shit is just a fad", he said, "No one's gonna be playing this stupid game in six months"
"Haters gon hate", said Jason, presenting his hand for Kurt to talk to as he sat down to face Chris.
The game, of course, was the newest release for Microsoft's augmented reality headset. It was called Ex Inferis--from Hell--and its development was timed specifically for an Oct 31st launch date. Jason had pre-ordered the premium package, which came with six eye-piece headsets for experiencing the game, as well as a special power gauntlet for himself that he could use to interact with elements of the game world. Everyone else would need to use their smartphones.
Having six headsets and only three guys, Chris had suggested for the other three sets that he could invite his girlfiend Bianca Summers and her two friends to join them. The promise of girls on the team had been the main reason Kurt was interested in playing a novelty game that he otherwise would have dismissed as being for losers, like back in the days of Pokemon Go.
---
Bianca and her crew pulled into the driveway just as the sky was growing dark and the houses and trees all around were bathed in orange and gold. Chris answered the door, and when he saw his girlfriend's costume, his eyes bugged out. They had agreed to do a matching theme, where he would be a classy vampire and she would be a classy witch. But what he didn't know was that Bianca's idea of classy was little black dress with so much slink it was almost skin tight, and a neckline so low that Chris' eyes might never escape it. She was always a good looking woman, with her blue eyes and blonde highlights, but when he saw her now with her dark femme fatale lipstick and intoxicating perfume, he couldn't help but blurt out, "Holy shit, Bi..."
Satisfied with the reaction she got, Bianca's dark lips smirked smugly, and she reached out to grab Chris by the buttons of his shirt and pull him in for a sweet kiss. "You're lookin' alright yourself", she teased.
"Get a room, you two", said Naima as she walked past both of them to enter the house. Naima Williams was a prickly woman. She and Bianca had been best friends in high school, and occasionally lovers while Bianca was experimenting. They remained close in college, even after Bianca started dating Chris. Naima was always an outspoken activist, quick to argue for what she thought was right, and this was a trait which college life had only exacerbated and encouraged. Her glow-up had been a severe one.
True to her nature, Naima was dressed as the warrior Nakia, from the Black Panther movie; a red and silver fighter's garb, with a ring of bones spread out around her neck, and a pair of chakrams hanging from her hips. It helped that Naima was taller than the other girls, almost as tall as Chris even, and that she had styled her hair in the same manner as the character she was portraying, and that she also kept herself in top shape.
As Chris and Bianca stepped away from the door to make space, Evie entered next, waving her hand. "Hi Chris", she greeted sweetly. Evelyn Rosewood, Evie for short, had been friends with both Chris and Jason back in grade school, but they had gone to different high schools, where Evie had then met Bianca. It was through Evie as a mutual friend that Chris and Bianca had met in their first year of college and hit it off.
Next to her two hot friends, Evie was not much to look at. She was 5-foot-5 and overweight, with a pudgy face and stubby nose that most would call cute but not beautiful, framed by wavy hair that was dyed a bright red. She was dressed in a simple costume, that of a black cat, which consisted of a strapless black dress and knitted shawl, with the obligatory ears and whiskers as well. It fit with the theme of Bianca's costume while being far more modest about what it revealed.
"Yo!! Step on up!", Kurt bellowed from the other room, "We got beer, we got shots, we got mixed drinks..."
The television was off now, the game console and controllers having been hastily kicked away into the corner around the same time the doorbell had rang. The laptop was closed up on the table, and Jason was on the couch already laying out the headsets for Ex Inferis' imminent launch. "Hurry up, the sun's almost setting", Jason called to the others. Then he smiled and waved at Evie. "Hey Evie", he called out. Evie waved back with a waggle of her fingers.
Bianca and Naima went over to get drinks while Evie sat down on the couch next to Jason and started rolling up a joint on the table in front of her. Chris quickly picked his laptop off the table to put it away in his bedroom while Kurt stayed to catch an eyeful of the girls. "May I say, you two ladies look fantastic tonight", he said with a grin as he held the bottle of vodka over their solo cups, offering to pour for them.
"You're still a pig as always, I see", Naima replied.
Kurt feigned offense and confusion, "Whaaaat? That was a very gentlemanly compliment"
"Hi Kurt", said Bianca, scooping up her cup and stirring it. "Bye Kurt", she then said, smiling as she walked back to the couch to join the others.
---
"Everybody put on your headsets now", Jason announced, just as Chris was rushing back into the room to scoop up Bianca and get her seated on his lap. They both took their headsets and put them on. Evie had just finished rolling the joint and lit it up quickly while Jason was handing her a headset. Kurt flopped into his gaming chair and grabbed his headset in one hand, a bottle of beer held in the other. Naima remained standing but took her headset and put it on as she leaned aloofly against the kitchen counter behind her.
Each of them could see through their eye-piece a glowing countdown timer that seemed to hover over everything. It was counting down towards sunset while in everyone's earpiece there was a faint and ominous thumping track to set the mood.
"This better not suck, Durant", Naima said, as Evie puffed and passed to Bianca, who puffed and passed to Chris. Chris puffed and passed to Naima, who was finally appeased by the familiar mellowing smoke filling her lungs.
The timer ticked down from five minutes, to four and three and two minutes, while the heartbeat-like thumping grew steadily louder, and the world through the eye-pieces got progressively darker, enhancing the transition of the sinking sun outside. The trees in the yard shifted from a soft orange to a deep inky black. The sky above appeared to rumble with faint storms of blood-red lightning. The wails of ghosts swirled about the room, coming and going like the random buzzing of flies.
The final second ticked down to zero, and then the timer disappeared. For a moment there was a tense silence. Then, an eruption of light in the center of the room, directly above the table. Brilliant electric blue swirled with volcanic orange. Sparks flew all about, enough to make the gathered students shift in their seats to instinctively avoid having the sparks land on them. But they weren't real, of course, only a projection of the eyepieces.
The brilliant flames snaked and swirled around the room in a stunning light show, until finally converging in the shape of an ellipse that resembled a dimensional portal from a fantasy game. There, the shape held, bucking and shimmering like water that was on fire, or flowing magma.
When it had all settled, the room was left flickering as if in the light of a central fire. From the portal, a man in dark robes stepped forth and floated in the air above the table, commanding the attention of all in the room.
He looked only partially present, as if a ghost. His translucent face was washed out with light from the portal, and his features shifted at random, so that one could never quite settle on a recognizable face. In a gravely and menacing voice, this holographic game master bellowed with great fanfare, "Tonight, I welcome you... to the opening launch... of... EX INFERIS!"
A thunderclap boomed all throughout the room as he delivered the name of the game, reverberating with such force that it rattled the drinks on the table. The ghostly man then looked at each player in turn, and said, "Who dares summon me? State your names"
Jason sprang up to his feet and struck a pose with his gauntlet. "It is I, Jason of House Durant!", he declared.
The game master seemed unimpressed and turned his eyes to Evie on the couch. She had been checking her phone through all of this and looked up in surprise when she felt the hologram's eyes looking directly at her. "Oh!", she blurted out, "Evie Rosewood". She hadn't been expecting the game to be sophisticated enough to track her location like that, but she guessed the game master character must have been programmed to locate each headset.
The game master turned to Bianca and Chris. Bianca had the joint in her hand as she reclined on Chris' lap, and she giggled back at the hologram, "Bi-hihihi-anca". Chris had been tickling her belly to mess her up, but then said from over her shoulder, "I'm Chris"
The ghost-like figure's darkened shifting eyes then turned to Kurt, who chugged the last of his beer and then answered, "James Bond", which got a giggle from Bianca across the room.
Naima then gave her name. "Naima Williams. Y'all better not be sending me spam e-mails after this"
"Too late, you're on a watch list now", Chris joked.
Bianca piped up, "Is it too late to change my name to Wonder Woman?"
"SILENCE!", the game master bellowed. Another deafening thunderclap jolt everyone in surprise. Kurt and Chris were both wondering how the game could even make such loud noises when it wasn't hooked up to a speaker system, and these booms were not coming from the headsets.
"I will explain the rules only once. Woe unto those who do not listen", the master said.
Naima jibed, "That's bullshit, there should be replay option"
The game master continued speaking over top of Naima:
"On this night, your world and Hell will merge. Demons will walk the earth. Plagues will ravage the land. You six are chosen to undergo a trial. If you succeed, you will have banished the evils of Hell for another year. But if you fail... your souls are mine"
Behind the game master, the glowing shimmering portal became sealed behind a formidable black gate. Four sharpened stones of different colours flew from the gate's locking mechanism and shot off through the window and into the distance. The game master continued speaking.
"You have until sunrise to collect the four keys that will unlock this gate to Hell"
Kurt groaned, "A fucking fetch quest..."
The master continued, "You'd best be quick about it, for if the gate remains closed at dawn's first light, your souls will be trapped in Hell forever"
"On your journey, various creatures of the pit will hunt you. Your phones will alert you when one is near. Be on your guard, and keep careful watch of your surroundings. Use your eyepieces to see the monsters, and the light on your phones to banish them. If you let them touch you, it will cost you a life, and you will be unable to interact with the game world until you respawn"
Everyone's phone had an Ex Inferis app that showed a status screen with three hearts respresenting lives. There were also map markers showing the directions of each of the four keys.
The game master then said, "Consider this minion your first test". Everyone's phone buzzed with an alert. For each of them, the app screen was flashing red to warn of a nearby monster. For Jason, his gauntlet displayed this information on a small screen, eliminating the need for him to pull out his phone.
Chris checked his phone. "Huh? So what does the monster look like?", he wondered aloud.
"Be ready for anything", Jason said, adjusting his headset so that he could see clearly through the eyepiece as he scanned the room.
Evie shrugged and took the joint back from Bianca, drawing in a long puff. Naima looked around briefly but then started texting someone.
Kurt groaned, getting up from his chair, "Whatever, who needs another drink?"
"Yo!", Chris answered, holding his hand up and shaking his empty bottle.
Kurt walked over to the kitchen to open the fridge, and as soon as he passed the counter, a blur of black and red leapt out at him with a monstrous roar. It looked like some kind of Zerg, with glowing red eyes, a spiny black shell, and long bladed arms. It seized upon Kurt before he knew what was happening and drove one of its blade arms through his body, ripping violently upward.
The creature was of course not real, and Kurt was left a bit stunned, but not hurt, however his phone beeped to show that he now only had two hearts, and displayed a countdown timer starting at fifteen minutes for when he could join the game again. "Man, what?", he mumbled, "Fuck that shit..."
The monster was not done. It turned its fearsome gaze upon the rest of the group and moved to attack. Naima was the first in its path, and she backed out of the way, fumbling with her phone to find the flashlight button. Evie went bug-eyed and ducked behind the couch. Chris jumped out of his chair so fast that he threw Bianca off balance and made her spill her drink all over the table.
Jason was ready, though, and he lined up his gauntlet like a superhero and pressed a button on his palm to make it emit a cone of light which made the monster recoil and then burst into smoke. "Woah!", Jason exclaimed, "That was fuckin' badass!"
Bianca turned around and shoved Chris back a step. "What the fuck, Chris? You made me spill my drink!", she said as she bent down to wipe some of the errant vodka and soda off of her legs.
"Sorry babe, I got startled", Chris said sheepishly.
Naima chimed in, "Real smooth, Romeo..."
Chris retorted, "You're one to talk"
"I didn't spill no drink!", Naima shot back.
Jason interrupted, "Hey guys, the freaky old guy is talking again"
The game master addressed the room again. "Now you must go", he said, "Return here when you have collected all four keys, and bring them to the portal. You have until sunrise, or it's game over for all of you..." He faded away with echoing laughter, leaving the six students alone in the room with the sealed portal still glowing in their eyepieces.
"Okay... so I guess we gotta walk around until we find those keys", Chris said.
Jason added, "And you'd better all pay attention, cause these monsters can show up anywhere"
"Yeah yeah...", Chris brushed him off.
Evie was looking at her phone, trying to find out where they had to go. "Umm... how far exactly are these keys?", she asked. Nobody knew the answer, so she was met with silence.
Kurt grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and tossed one to Chris. "Alright, fuck it, let's go", he said, "If it gets boring, we'll just hit up a party"
The sun was still up and Jason Durant was already cracking open three bottles of beer for himself and his two housemates. It was 5 o'clock on October 31st, and although it was just the three of them for now, they were well prepared for an all-night party. The fridge was stocked with beer, and another case was sitting on the floor nearby. Glass bottles of cheap whisky and vodka lined the kitchen counter next to plastic bottles of coke and ginger ale.
Chris Noble was the first to reach for a beer, though he did not stand up from the couch where he was lounging, due to the open laptop that was unfolded across his legs. He took the beer in one hand while he was still typing something with the other hand. Chris and Jason had been friends since grade school, and when they ended up going to the same college they decided to rent a house basement together. The basement had three bedrooms, and so the third man sharing the place was Kurt Sharma, a fellow student with whom Chris shared some classes, and a solid gym buddy.
As it was Halloween, everyone was in costume. Chris was dressed in frilly victorian garb with powdered cheeks and plastic fangs, trying to pull off the Tom Cruise look from Interview with the Vampire despite his hair being short and dark, not blond and flowing like Lestat. The costume was well made and it looked sharp on him, though it was also the same one that he had worn last year and the year before, with some elements going all the way back to his high school goth phase.
Across from Chris, Kurt was sat facing the wall-mounted TV, fully engrossed in a shooter game that was pumping the sound of rapid-fire gunshots all through the room. Kurt was dressed in leather pants, with thin strings around his biceps and a plastic khopesh at his hip. Naturally, he had chosen the Scorpion King as his costume so that he would have an excuse to go shirtless and show off his muscles for all the girls he would be meeting tonight.
Ever the weeb, Jason was dressed as a character from his favourite anime, the dark elven wizard Kurai, from an obscure series called Saikyo no Yume Kishi-dan. It was a good fit for his relatively short stature and dark skin tone. The costume's striking asymmetric robe and flowing white wig made for a striking appearance, especially when he posed for photos with a spread of kunai daggers in his hand. Kurt and Chris both thought it was a bit lame, though, that Jason looked like he belonged at a cosplay convention, not a college party.
As Jason came over to the couch, Kurt finally reached out to take his beer while he was waiting for his character to respawn. He took a swig and said to Chris, "Yo when are the girls supposed to show up?"
Chris looked up from his laptop and replied, "Bianca told me they'd be here before sunset, but you know how women are"
"They'd better get here before sunset!", Jason blurted out, "That's when the game launches. The intro is gonna be sick, I'm telling you, man"
Kurt gave an equivocal look and shrugged, turning his attention back to the game. "Whatever dude, all this augmented reality shit is just a fad", he said, "No one's gonna be playing this stupid game in six months"
"Haters gon hate", said Jason, presenting his hand for Kurt to talk to as he sat down to face Chris.
The game, of course, was the newest release for Microsoft's augmented reality headset. It was called Ex Inferis--from Hell--and its development was timed specifically for an Oct 31st launch date. Jason had pre-ordered the premium package, which came with six eye-piece headsets for experiencing the game, as well as a special power gauntlet for himself that he could use to interact with elements of the game world. Everyone else would need to use their smartphones.
Having six headsets and only three guys, Chris had suggested for the other three sets that he could invite his girlfiend Bianca Summers and her two friends to join them. The promise of girls on the team had been the main reason Kurt was interested in playing a novelty game that he otherwise would have dismissed as being for losers, like back in the days of Pokemon Go.
---
Bianca and her crew pulled into the driveway just as the sky was growing dark and the houses and trees all around were bathed in orange and gold. Chris answered the door, and when he saw his girlfriend's costume, his eyes bugged out. They had agreed to do a matching theme, where he would be a classy vampire and she would be a classy witch. But what he didn't know was that Bianca's idea of classy was little black dress with so much slink it was almost skin tight, and a neckline so low that Chris' eyes might never escape it. She was always a good looking woman, with her blue eyes and blonde highlights, but when he saw her now with her dark femme fatale lipstick and intoxicating perfume, he couldn't help but blurt out, "Holy shit, Bi..."
Satisfied with the reaction she got, Bianca's dark lips smirked smugly, and she reached out to grab Chris by the buttons of his shirt and pull him in for a sweet kiss. "You're lookin' alright yourself", she teased.
"Get a room, you two", said Naima as she walked past both of them to enter the house. Naima Williams was a prickly woman. She and Bianca had been best friends in high school, and occasionally lovers while Bianca was experimenting. They remained close in college, even after Bianca started dating Chris. Naima was always an outspoken activist, quick to argue for what she thought was right, and this was a trait which college life had only exacerbated and encouraged. Her glow-up had been a severe one.
True to her nature, Naima was dressed as the warrior Nakia, from the Black Panther movie; a red and silver fighter's garb, with a ring of bones spread out around her neck, and a pair of chakrams hanging from her hips. It helped that Naima was taller than the other girls, almost as tall as Chris even, and that she had styled her hair in the same manner as the character she was portraying, and that she also kept herself in top shape.
As Chris and Bianca stepped away from the door to make space, Evie entered next, waving her hand. "Hi Chris", she greeted sweetly. Evelyn Rosewood, Evie for short, had been friends with both Chris and Jason back in grade school, but they had gone to different high schools, where Evie had then met Bianca. It was through Evie as a mutual friend that Chris and Bianca had met in their first year of college and hit it off.
Next to her two hot friends, Evie was not much to look at. She was 5-foot-5 and overweight, with a pudgy face and stubby nose that most would call cute but not beautiful, framed by wavy hair that was dyed a bright red. She was dressed in a simple costume, that of a black cat, which consisted of a strapless black dress and knitted shawl, with the obligatory ears and whiskers as well. It fit with the theme of Bianca's costume while being far more modest about what it revealed.
"Yo!! Step on up!", Kurt bellowed from the other room, "We got beer, we got shots, we got mixed drinks..."
The television was off now, the game console and controllers having been hastily kicked away into the corner around the same time the doorbell had rang. The laptop was closed up on the table, and Jason was on the couch already laying out the headsets for Ex Inferis' imminent launch. "Hurry up, the sun's almost setting", Jason called to the others. Then he smiled and waved at Evie. "Hey Evie", he called out. Evie waved back with a waggle of her fingers.
Bianca and Naima went over to get drinks while Evie sat down on the couch next to Jason and started rolling up a joint on the table in front of her. Chris quickly picked his laptop off the table to put it away in his bedroom while Kurt stayed to catch an eyeful of the girls. "May I say, you two ladies look fantastic tonight", he said with a grin as he held the bottle of vodka over their solo cups, offering to pour for them.
"You're still a pig as always, I see", Naima replied.
Kurt feigned offense and confusion, "Whaaaat? That was a very gentlemanly compliment"
"Hi Kurt", said Bianca, scooping up her cup and stirring it. "Bye Kurt", she then said, smiling as she walked back to the couch to join the others.
---
"Everybody put on your headsets now", Jason announced, just as Chris was rushing back into the room to scoop up Bianca and get her seated on his lap. They both took their headsets and put them on. Evie had just finished rolling the joint and lit it up quickly while Jason was handing her a headset. Kurt flopped into his gaming chair and grabbed his headset in one hand, a bottle of beer held in the other. Naima remained standing but took her headset and put it on as she leaned aloofly against the kitchen counter behind her.
Each of them could see through their eye-piece a glowing countdown timer that seemed to hover over everything. It was counting down towards sunset while in everyone's earpiece there was a faint and ominous thumping track to set the mood.
"This better not suck, Durant", Naima said, as Evie puffed and passed to Bianca, who puffed and passed to Chris. Chris puffed and passed to Naima, who was finally appeased by the familiar mellowing smoke filling her lungs.
The timer ticked down from five minutes, to four and three and two minutes, while the heartbeat-like thumping grew steadily louder, and the world through the eye-pieces got progressively darker, enhancing the transition of the sinking sun outside. The trees in the yard shifted from a soft orange to a deep inky black. The sky above appeared to rumble with faint storms of blood-red lightning. The wails of ghosts swirled about the room, coming and going like the random buzzing of flies.
The final second ticked down to zero, and then the timer disappeared. For a moment there was a tense silence. Then, an eruption of light in the center of the room, directly above the table. Brilliant electric blue swirled with volcanic orange. Sparks flew all about, enough to make the gathered students shift in their seats to instinctively avoid having the sparks land on them. But they weren't real, of course, only a projection of the eyepieces.
The brilliant flames snaked and swirled around the room in a stunning light show, until finally converging in the shape of an ellipse that resembled a dimensional portal from a fantasy game. There, the shape held, bucking and shimmering like water that was on fire, or flowing magma.
When it had all settled, the room was left flickering as if in the light of a central fire. From the portal, a man in dark robes stepped forth and floated in the air above the table, commanding the attention of all in the room.
He looked only partially present, as if a ghost. His translucent face was washed out with light from the portal, and his features shifted at random, so that one could never quite settle on a recognizable face. In a gravely and menacing voice, this holographic game master bellowed with great fanfare, "Tonight, I welcome you... to the opening launch... of... EX INFERIS!"
A thunderclap boomed all throughout the room as he delivered the name of the game, reverberating with such force that it rattled the drinks on the table. The ghostly man then looked at each player in turn, and said, "Who dares summon me? State your names"
Jason sprang up to his feet and struck a pose with his gauntlet. "It is I, Jason of House Durant!", he declared.
The game master seemed unimpressed and turned his eyes to Evie on the couch. She had been checking her phone through all of this and looked up in surprise when she felt the hologram's eyes looking directly at her. "Oh!", she blurted out, "Evie Rosewood". She hadn't been expecting the game to be sophisticated enough to track her location like that, but she guessed the game master character must have been programmed to locate each headset.
The game master turned to Bianca and Chris. Bianca had the joint in her hand as she reclined on Chris' lap, and she giggled back at the hologram, "Bi-hihihi-anca". Chris had been tickling her belly to mess her up, but then said from over her shoulder, "I'm Chris"
The ghost-like figure's darkened shifting eyes then turned to Kurt, who chugged the last of his beer and then answered, "James Bond", which got a giggle from Bianca across the room.
Naima then gave her name. "Naima Williams. Y'all better not be sending me spam e-mails after this"
"Too late, you're on a watch list now", Chris joked.
Bianca piped up, "Is it too late to change my name to Wonder Woman?"
"SILENCE!", the game master bellowed. Another deafening thunderclap jolt everyone in surprise. Kurt and Chris were both wondering how the game could even make such loud noises when it wasn't hooked up to a speaker system, and these booms were not coming from the headsets.
"I will explain the rules only once. Woe unto those who do not listen", the master said.
Naima jibed, "That's bullshit, there should be replay option"
The game master continued speaking over top of Naima:
"On this night, your world and Hell will merge. Demons will walk the earth. Plagues will ravage the land. You six are chosen to undergo a trial. If you succeed, you will have banished the evils of Hell for another year. But if you fail... your souls are mine"
Behind the game master, the glowing shimmering portal became sealed behind a formidable black gate. Four sharpened stones of different colours flew from the gate's locking mechanism and shot off through the window and into the distance. The game master continued speaking.
"You have until sunrise to collect the four keys that will unlock this gate to Hell"
Kurt groaned, "A fucking fetch quest..."
The master continued, "You'd best be quick about it, for if the gate remains closed at dawn's first light, your souls will be trapped in Hell forever"
"On your journey, various creatures of the pit will hunt you. Your phones will alert you when one is near. Be on your guard, and keep careful watch of your surroundings. Use your eyepieces to see the monsters, and the light on your phones to banish them. If you let them touch you, it will cost you a life, and you will be unable to interact with the game world until you respawn"
Everyone's phone had an Ex Inferis app that showed a status screen with three hearts respresenting lives. There were also map markers showing the directions of each of the four keys.
The game master then said, "Consider this minion your first test". Everyone's phone buzzed with an alert. For each of them, the app screen was flashing red to warn of a nearby monster. For Jason, his gauntlet displayed this information on a small screen, eliminating the need for him to pull out his phone.
Chris checked his phone. "Huh? So what does the monster look like?", he wondered aloud.
"Be ready for anything", Jason said, adjusting his headset so that he could see clearly through the eyepiece as he scanned the room.
Evie shrugged and took the joint back from Bianca, drawing in a long puff. Naima looked around briefly but then started texting someone.
Kurt groaned, getting up from his chair, "Whatever, who needs another drink?"
"Yo!", Chris answered, holding his hand up and shaking his empty bottle.
Kurt walked over to the kitchen to open the fridge, and as soon as he passed the counter, a blur of black and red leapt out at him with a monstrous roar. It looked like some kind of Zerg, with glowing red eyes, a spiny black shell, and long bladed arms. It seized upon Kurt before he knew what was happening and drove one of its blade arms through his body, ripping violently upward.
The creature was of course not real, and Kurt was left a bit stunned, but not hurt, however his phone beeped to show that he now only had two hearts, and displayed a countdown timer starting at fifteen minutes for when he could join the game again. "Man, what?", he mumbled, "Fuck that shit..."
The monster was not done. It turned its fearsome gaze upon the rest of the group and moved to attack. Naima was the first in its path, and she backed out of the way, fumbling with her phone to find the flashlight button. Evie went bug-eyed and ducked behind the couch. Chris jumped out of his chair so fast that he threw Bianca off balance and made her spill her drink all over the table.
Jason was ready, though, and he lined up his gauntlet like a superhero and pressed a button on his palm to make it emit a cone of light which made the monster recoil and then burst into smoke. "Woah!", Jason exclaimed, "That was fuckin' badass!"
Bianca turned around and shoved Chris back a step. "What the fuck, Chris? You made me spill my drink!", she said as she bent down to wipe some of the errant vodka and soda off of her legs.
"Sorry babe, I got startled", Chris said sheepishly.
Naima chimed in, "Real smooth, Romeo..."
Chris retorted, "You're one to talk"
"I didn't spill no drink!", Naima shot back.
Jason interrupted, "Hey guys, the freaky old guy is talking again"
The game master addressed the room again. "Now you must go", he said, "Return here when you have collected all four keys, and bring them to the portal. You have until sunrise, or it's game over for all of you..." He faded away with echoing laughter, leaving the six students alone in the room with the sealed portal still glowing in their eyepieces.
"Okay... so I guess we gotta walk around until we find those keys", Chris said.
Jason added, "And you'd better all pay attention, cause these monsters can show up anywhere"
"Yeah yeah...", Chris brushed him off.
Evie was looking at her phone, trying to find out where they had to go. "Umm... how far exactly are these keys?", she asked. Nobody knew the answer, so she was met with silence.
Kurt grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and tossed one to Chris. "Alright, fuck it, let's go", he said, "If it gets boring, we'll just hit up a party"
The world of Ex Inferis was visually stunning. It was like their quaint college-town neighbourhood had been transformed into a macabre hellscape that mapped perfectly with the natural features of the land. The trees, when viewed through the eyepiece, would show up as being on fire, or bizarre colours, or haunted with glowing red eyes and mouths, their black dead branches swaying in the wind as if they were deliberate movements of someone's arms.
Individual houses were sometimes bathed in a blood red aura, as if possessed by a poultergeist. Some had blood leaking from the windows, or the car in the driveway was a flaming wreck, or there was an open mass grave in the front yard, full of emaciated bodies that were still alive and squirming in agony, reaching up and begging for help.
Not only were the visuals impressive, but the soundscape amplified the atmosphere a hundredfold. The natural autumn wind was enhanced with faint wails of the dead, the screams of hell, or the bubbling and hissing of lava just beneath the surface of the road. Every so often, the road itself would appear to be broken apart, with steam and lava bubbling up from the cracks.
Jason marveled at how well the game mapped to the geography, and he wondered how they did it. Even Google street view wasn't that precise or up to date, and satellite photos alone wouldn't have given enough detail for what they were seeing.
Even mobile elements were transformed by this augmented reality. Minivans rolled by that looked like giant spiders that owned the road. Jack-o-lanterns seemed to rise up from where they sat and float in the air, turning to observe the players as they walked past. Groups of children trick-or-treating could be viewed through the eyepiece as being little skeletons, or mutant beasts, or the freaky golden-eyed children of classic horror movies.
Every couple blocks that the six of them walked, their phones would alert them to an incoming monster, and the six of them would stop and search their surroundings carefully, expecting a prowling predator behind every bush and vehicle. Having learned from Kurt's earlier mistake, each of them were now taking the game seriously enough to have their phone flashlights ready as soon as they saw something coming.
The only exception was Kurt, who was still waiting for his respawn timer to elapse. For him, all of the augmented sounds and visuals had a muted quality to them, as if he were a ghost, only faintly observing things from the netherworld. The wailing of spirits was much louder for Kurt, and it was starting to get on his nerves enough that he was determined not to get tagged a second time.
While they were outside, everyone could see coloured beacons in the sky that pointed the way to the four keys. One was blue, another was red, and the others two were yellow and magenta, so it was easy to distinguish between them. The nearest key was the blue one, based on the size and intensity of the beacon. After several minutes of walking through the neighbourhood, the party arrived at a concrete bridge spanning the river below.
From beneath the bridge, a faint blue light was pulsing. Kurt and Jason made their way toward it, using Jason's gauntlet as a flashlight to find their way down.
"Careful, guys!", Bianca warned, "Remember a guy fell to his death here a couple years ago"
Chris said, "I thought he was hit by a car"
"I heard it was a suicide", Naima said.
"Clinton style...", Chris joked.
Bianca punched his arm. "That's not funny", she said.
Kurt and Jason descended the slope to get under the bridge, and noticed a pair of stoners already down there, passing a joint back and forth. "Wsuuuuuppp...", one of the guys greeted.
"Yo!", Jason called back.
One by one, the rest of the group slowly climbed down under the bridge.
Chris looked around, checking his phone. "The key's gotta be around here", he said.
"Light's coming from down by the river", Jason replied. The bank was somewhat precarious, especially in the dark. It wasn't a descent to be taken lightly.
One of the two stoners spoke up here. "Yo, are you guys playing pokemon or some shit?", he asked, chuckling to himself.
Jason replied indignantly. "It's a game called Ex Inferis. Not that you'd understand", he snapped back as he edged up to the embankment to take a look down at where the key was.
The two stoners laughed. "Sounds fuckin' gay", they said.
That was enough to trigger Naima, and she stepped up to give them an earful. "That's just what I'd expect from two homophobic incels like y'all", she yelled as she stepped up to confront them, "Do you even give a shit about how many queer individuals commit suicide every month because of shitbags like you?"
The stoners started laughing as they took turns sucking in a puff of weed smoke. "Okay Karen", one of them said.
"Do I look like a Karen to you?", Naima shot back.
One of the guys answered, "Bitch, you can't wait to talk to my manager"
At this point, Kurt stepped up, waving Naima off, and said to them, "Guys, shut the fuck up"
Meanwhile, Jason was working his way carefully down the steep slope toward the water. Chris was nearby, urging him to be careful, while Bianca was on her way over to help if she could.
Down in the water, Jason could see through his eyepiece the source of the blue light, which was embedded among the rocks below the surface. There was precious little dry ground for him to dig his boots into, and much less for him to grab with his hands to keep his balance, but he was sure that he could get it.
Just then, all of their phones lit up with an incoming monster. Naima and Kurt called out the alarm while the stoners only laughed some more about how animated they were getting.
"I almost got it", Jason said.
Chris crouched down at the top of the embankment. "Dude, you need a hand?", he asked, reaching out.
"No, I got it", said Jason.
"Oh shit!", Bianca shouted. She was looking across the river and saw a demonic creature dive into the water. Reptillian in form, it was part alligator and part dinosaur. "Jason, look out!", she warned.
Jason kept stretching his hand toward the key as the monster dove into the water on the far bank and swam toward him. Jason kept reaching with his fingers and finally grabbed the key. Just as he was raising back up, the monster swam close and burst out of the water at him.
In a swift and desperate move, Jason switched hands on the earth behind him and raised his gauntlet, blasting the monster with light and wiping it out. Then he began to fall, and he might have ended up in the river if not for Chris quickly reaching out and grabbing his arm to steady him.
"Shit!", Jason's foot slipped, and Chris brought his other hand down to grab hold of him. Jason dangled for a second, and Chris started to slide forward, pulled down by his friend's weight. Bianca grabbed hold of Chris by the waist and tried to pull him up, screaming for the others to help.
Kurt heard this and left his argument with the stoners to run over and help pull Chris and Jason back up off the embankment. After some struggle, everyone finally got back onto dry land and laid out, catching their breath.
"Dude...", said the two stoners in unison.
Evie rushed over. "Holy shit, are you guys alright?", she asked.
"I got the key", said Jason triumphantly. He held up his hand, showing to everyone with an eyepiece that he was holding onto a brass skeleton key glowing with blue light. To the two stoners observing, he was holding nothing more than a twisted bit of wire.
"I've got the conch", one of them said mockingly, emulating Piggy's foppish accent from Lord of the Flies.
Kurt looked over at them. "Fuck off, assholes", he said.
"We were here first", came the response.
This was when Evie stood up and decided to speak. In a sweet voice, she said to them, "Oh wow, you know what? You guys are way cooler! Smoking weed all night under a bridge? I wish I could join you. But we have, like, friends and stuff? So we have to go"
She already anticipated the response before it came, "Fuck you, bitch!" Evie only kissed her middle finger and presented it to the boys as her group got up and left.
---
"One key down", Jason announced triumphantly.
Chris demurred, "Fuck man. That's kind of shitty for the game to make you go into the river like that"
"I agree, that's not cool", Bianca said.
Jason tsked, "Hey, it wouldn't be a game if it was too easy, right?"
Chris murmured, "Yeah, I don't know..."
Kurt looked up at the sky through his eyepiece, watching the rising moon turn blood red. The time on his phone said 6:45pm. "Sweet, it's not even seven. If we keep this up we'll be done before midnight and we can still hit up a party", he said.
Chris replied, "Don't worry, we'll drop you off at the gay pride party if we take too long"
"That's not even a thing", Kurt shot back.
Individual houses were sometimes bathed in a blood red aura, as if possessed by a poultergeist. Some had blood leaking from the windows, or the car in the driveway was a flaming wreck, or there was an open mass grave in the front yard, full of emaciated bodies that were still alive and squirming in agony, reaching up and begging for help.
Not only were the visuals impressive, but the soundscape amplified the atmosphere a hundredfold. The natural autumn wind was enhanced with faint wails of the dead, the screams of hell, or the bubbling and hissing of lava just beneath the surface of the road. Every so often, the road itself would appear to be broken apart, with steam and lava bubbling up from the cracks.
Jason marveled at how well the game mapped to the geography, and he wondered how they did it. Even Google street view wasn't that precise or up to date, and satellite photos alone wouldn't have given enough detail for what they were seeing.
Even mobile elements were transformed by this augmented reality. Minivans rolled by that looked like giant spiders that owned the road. Jack-o-lanterns seemed to rise up from where they sat and float in the air, turning to observe the players as they walked past. Groups of children trick-or-treating could be viewed through the eyepiece as being little skeletons, or mutant beasts, or the freaky golden-eyed children of classic horror movies.
Every couple blocks that the six of them walked, their phones would alert them to an incoming monster, and the six of them would stop and search their surroundings carefully, expecting a prowling predator behind every bush and vehicle. Having learned from Kurt's earlier mistake, each of them were now taking the game seriously enough to have their phone flashlights ready as soon as they saw something coming.
The only exception was Kurt, who was still waiting for his respawn timer to elapse. For him, all of the augmented sounds and visuals had a muted quality to them, as if he were a ghost, only faintly observing things from the netherworld. The wailing of spirits was much louder for Kurt, and it was starting to get on his nerves enough that he was determined not to get tagged a second time.
While they were outside, everyone could see coloured beacons in the sky that pointed the way to the four keys. One was blue, another was red, and the others two were yellow and magenta, so it was easy to distinguish between them. The nearest key was the blue one, based on the size and intensity of the beacon. After several minutes of walking through the neighbourhood, the party arrived at a concrete bridge spanning the river below.
From beneath the bridge, a faint blue light was pulsing. Kurt and Jason made their way toward it, using Jason's gauntlet as a flashlight to find their way down.
"Careful, guys!", Bianca warned, "Remember a guy fell to his death here a couple years ago"
Chris said, "I thought he was hit by a car"
"I heard it was a suicide", Naima said.
"Clinton style...", Chris joked.
Bianca punched his arm. "That's not funny", she said.
Kurt and Jason descended the slope to get under the bridge, and noticed a pair of stoners already down there, passing a joint back and forth. "Wsuuuuuppp...", one of the guys greeted.
"Yo!", Jason called back.
One by one, the rest of the group slowly climbed down under the bridge.
Chris looked around, checking his phone. "The key's gotta be around here", he said.
"Light's coming from down by the river", Jason replied. The bank was somewhat precarious, especially in the dark. It wasn't a descent to be taken lightly.
One of the two stoners spoke up here. "Yo, are you guys playing pokemon or some shit?", he asked, chuckling to himself.
Jason replied indignantly. "It's a game called Ex Inferis. Not that you'd understand", he snapped back as he edged up to the embankment to take a look down at where the key was.
The two stoners laughed. "Sounds fuckin' gay", they said.
That was enough to trigger Naima, and she stepped up to give them an earful. "That's just what I'd expect from two homophobic incels like y'all", she yelled as she stepped up to confront them, "Do you even give a shit about how many queer individuals commit suicide every month because of shitbags like you?"
The stoners started laughing as they took turns sucking in a puff of weed smoke. "Okay Karen", one of them said.
"Do I look like a Karen to you?", Naima shot back.
One of the guys answered, "Bitch, you can't wait to talk to my manager"
At this point, Kurt stepped up, waving Naima off, and said to them, "Guys, shut the fuck up"
Meanwhile, Jason was working his way carefully down the steep slope toward the water. Chris was nearby, urging him to be careful, while Bianca was on her way over to help if she could.
Down in the water, Jason could see through his eyepiece the source of the blue light, which was embedded among the rocks below the surface. There was precious little dry ground for him to dig his boots into, and much less for him to grab with his hands to keep his balance, but he was sure that he could get it.
Just then, all of their phones lit up with an incoming monster. Naima and Kurt called out the alarm while the stoners only laughed some more about how animated they were getting.
"I almost got it", Jason said.
Chris crouched down at the top of the embankment. "Dude, you need a hand?", he asked, reaching out.
"No, I got it", said Jason.
"Oh shit!", Bianca shouted. She was looking across the river and saw a demonic creature dive into the water. Reptillian in form, it was part alligator and part dinosaur. "Jason, look out!", she warned.
Jason kept stretching his hand toward the key as the monster dove into the water on the far bank and swam toward him. Jason kept reaching with his fingers and finally grabbed the key. Just as he was raising back up, the monster swam close and burst out of the water at him.
In a swift and desperate move, Jason switched hands on the earth behind him and raised his gauntlet, blasting the monster with light and wiping it out. Then he began to fall, and he might have ended up in the river if not for Chris quickly reaching out and grabbing his arm to steady him.
"Shit!", Jason's foot slipped, and Chris brought his other hand down to grab hold of him. Jason dangled for a second, and Chris started to slide forward, pulled down by his friend's weight. Bianca grabbed hold of Chris by the waist and tried to pull him up, screaming for the others to help.
Kurt heard this and left his argument with the stoners to run over and help pull Chris and Jason back up off the embankment. After some struggle, everyone finally got back onto dry land and laid out, catching their breath.
"Dude...", said the two stoners in unison.
Evie rushed over. "Holy shit, are you guys alright?", she asked.
"I got the key", said Jason triumphantly. He held up his hand, showing to everyone with an eyepiece that he was holding onto a brass skeleton key glowing with blue light. To the two stoners observing, he was holding nothing more than a twisted bit of wire.
"I've got the conch", one of them said mockingly, emulating Piggy's foppish accent from Lord of the Flies.
Kurt looked over at them. "Fuck off, assholes", he said.
"We were here first", came the response.
This was when Evie stood up and decided to speak. In a sweet voice, she said to them, "Oh wow, you know what? You guys are way cooler! Smoking weed all night under a bridge? I wish I could join you. But we have, like, friends and stuff? So we have to go"
She already anticipated the response before it came, "Fuck you, bitch!" Evie only kissed her middle finger and presented it to the boys as her group got up and left.
---
"One key down", Jason announced triumphantly.
Chris demurred, "Fuck man. That's kind of shitty for the game to make you go into the river like that"
"I agree, that's not cool", Bianca said.
Jason tsked, "Hey, it wouldn't be a game if it was too easy, right?"
Chris murmured, "Yeah, I don't know..."
Kurt looked up at the sky through his eyepiece, watching the rising moon turn blood red. The time on his phone said 6:45pm. "Sweet, it's not even seven. If we keep this up we'll be done before midnight and we can still hit up a party", he said.
Chris replied, "Don't worry, we'll drop you off at the gay pride party if we take too long"
"That's not even a thing", Kurt shot back.
Following the magenta beacon led them to the gates of the local cemetary. At this time of night, it was of course closed, the wrought-iron gates locked with a solid chain. "Oh snap", Naima said, looking up at the intimidating fence surrounding the graveyard, "We're goin' in here?"
Chris said, "That can't be right, they can't make us break and enter private property"
Jason shrugged and pointed to the map display on his gauntlet. "That's where the key's at", he said.
Kurt grinned. "Aww shit, Chris. You're scared?", he teased, "Afraid of breaking a wittle law?"
"Fuck off, asshole", Chris replied. He walked over to the fence and put his hands on it to test how hard it would be to climb it.
Evie spoke up at this point. "I'm not climbing that", she said. Nobody was surprised. Even if she wanted to trespass on private property, there was no way she was hauling her own weight over an eight-foot fence. "You guys do whatever, I'm staying here", she said.
The others looked at one another and then Jason said, "I'll stay here too. You guys go on ahead". Bianca and Naima rolled their eyes. Jason's long-standing crush on Evie was a poorly kept secret.
"Okay!", Chris said, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention, "Everyone who can climb is going over. Everyone else can wait here with Evie"
"I'm in", said Kurt, grabbing the fence.
"I'm in", said Naima.
Chris looked to Bianca, and she hesitated for a bit, then looked back at him and said, "I'm in if you are~"
He couldn't back down after that, and one by one the four of them scaled the fence and climbed over into the cemetary.
One by one, they dropped down inside the graveyard. Kurt was first, and then Naima, and then Chris and Bianca. Jason and Evie stood outside the fence, Jason saying to Chris, "Don't worry, we'll be fine"
Chris checked his phone and read the beacon direction. "Okay, the next key should be...", he started to say.
"That way", said Naima and Bianca at the same time.
The group moved forward, weaving between the gravestones as mere obstacles on the way to their goal.
"A graveyard, though. Pretty fuckin' cliche, don'cha think?", Bianca said to Chris.
Chris shrugged. "Eh, y'know, they don't pay these guys to be original", he answered.
Another alert came in for a monster inbound. The four of them shut up and got into a tight circle to look out in all directions. They watched among the gravestones for any signs of movement. Meanwhile, Jason and Evie outside got the same alert and looked around warily.
Jason said quietly to Evie, "Don't worry I got this"
Evie replied, "Oh, well that's a relief. I was feeling like such a damsel until just now"
Inside the cemetary, the players pulled into a tight circle, but Kurt slowly ventured out. "Yeah?", he called out, "Here I am, monster. Where you at?"
"Man, what are you doing?", Chris whispered.
Kurt just put his hand back to assuage his friend. For a long moment, things were silent and tense. Everyone was watching the top of every grave and the space between them, looking for movement. Kurt strayed further out.
Nobody dared speak. A long silence followed. All eyes searched the darkness.
Then Kurt saw something moving from behind a tree. He slowly approached, keeping his footsteps quiet and his phone out. From behind the tree, a low growl and a subtle movement gave away that something was there.
Kurt checked side to side and approached slowly, quietly. Then he grabbed his crotch like Richard Pryor and shouted, "Motherfuckaa!"
The creature burst from behind the tree in a flash, and in the same flash Kurt brought his phone up and vaporized it with the flashlight.
"Fuck yeah!", he shouted, as soon as he saw it disintegrate into a puff of smoke, "Eat that shit!"
Chris, Bianca, and Naima stood up and walked over, double-checking their phones to confirm that there were no other monsters still around. "Alright, hotshot, don't get cocky", Bianca said.
"How far would you get without me?", Kurt said.
Chris said, "I don't know man, you're the only one who lost a life so far"
"A fluke, bro", Kurt answered, "When I'm at two and you're all at one left, you'll all be running to me for help"
"Chill the fuck out, He-man", Naima said.
Chris said, "More like Sea-man"
Kurt looked back, "Whatever, dude"
Chris followed up, "Tom Cruise has Sea-man on his back"
Kurt just flipped Chris off and continued on his way through the graveyard.
The beacon for the magenta key was pointing to the far side of the cemetary. All four of them began making their way towards it, but on the way, Kurt noticed something: a flash of white skin in the distance.
"Woah, somethin's up", he said to the others, and he started walking towards what he saw.
"Hey where are you...", Chris tried to stop him, but it was useless. Once Kurt was focused on something, he could not be dissuaded.
Kurt continued forward, Chris and Bianca following slightly behind, while Naima kept heading towards the key.
"Bro", Chris whispered out to Kurt, "Where are you going?"
"Just chill", Kurt said, waving Chris off. He kept on walking forward, between the graves. The trees in the distance got closer, and the graves around them easier to see. Chris and Bianca followed, leaving Naima behind.
It was after five minutes of exploration that Kurt came upon a set of graves where he could tell something was up. Behind one of them, he saw a pair of eyes looking back at him. The eyes resolved into a face, which rose up from behind its hiding place to reveal the full body of a naked girl, short and slim as described a fellow college student, with blonde pigtails and a mischievous smile.
"Hey~", said the girl, her lower body still hidden behind a gravestone while her tits were on full display to Kurt.
"...sup", said Kurt, grinning ear to ear.
The girl glanced past Kurt's shoulder at Chris and Bianca who were coming up behind him. Kurt looked over his shoulder and then said to the girl, "Don't worry about them, they're cool"
"Doesn't look like it", said the girl, ducking behind the gravestone.
Kurt turned to Chris and Bianca. "Guys, I got this. Go find the key", he said.
Chris looked over at the girl who was hiding, noting clearly that she was naked. "Ahhh... what's going on?", he asked.
"I told you, I got this", said Kurt.
Bianca scoffed. "Oh my god. Fucking skank", she blurted out.
"Fuck you!", the girl called back from behind her gravestone, flipping her middle finger, "It's caaaalled Wiccanism?".
"Guys, fuck off", Kurt whispered.
Chris continued to stare at the girl behind the gravestone until Bianca pulled at his arm. "I hope you get arrested, slut", she called out, then they made their way back to where Naima was.
Kurt shooed Chris and Bianca away and then advanced forward, grinning at the girl. "Don't listen to them. They're religious or some shit", he said to her.
"I don't mind~", said the girl, revealing herself again for Kurt alone. "Do you wanna hang out with my coven?", she asked, "We need a big strong man for our ritual". In the darkness behind her, Kurt could see another girl was watching him from behind a tree, equally naked.
Kurt coughed and grinned widely. "Fuck yeah, let's go", he said.
---
Outside the cemetary fence, Evie and Jason stood around awkwardly. Jason was looking around anxiously, as if playing lookout for a burglary. Evie spent the time engrossed in her phone. Eventually the silence between them got awkward enough that Jason felt like he had to say something.
"So what do you think of the game so far?", he asked her.
Evie looked up from her phone, raising her eyebrows at Jason. "Oh.. hm, it's okay", she said, "But I can't believe it's making us go to all these weird places"
"Yeah, I was wondering that myself", Jason said, "I guess the developers wanted a more hardcore experience or something"
"Hmm...", Evie demurred. Just then, a sense of foreboding came over her and she felt like she was being watched. She looked over her shoulder and gasped in surprise to see a dark figure standing across the street, perfectly still, watching her and Jason. The features of its body were obscured by shadow, but there was a clear human face, pale as the moonlight, with dark shadowy eyes and thinly drawn lips.
Jason noticed Evie's reaction and looked over as well. A chill went through his body at the sight of the ominous being and the way its dark eyes focused directly on them. "Woah! Who the fuck is that?", he blurted out, quickly lowering his voice.
"He's just... standing there...", Evie whispered.
After what felt like an exceptionally long time staring back and forth, Jason finally worked up the courage to confront the figure. "Hey!", he called out, taking a step forward to put Evie behind him. Evie clutched his arm, trying to dissuade him from talking to the creep, but Jason continued anyway. "Can we help you?", he shouted.
The dark figure did not answer, or react at all, it only continued to stand and stare. Jason wasn't sure what to do next, but then he called out, "Get lost or I'm calling the cops"
Again, the figure did not respond, but ultimately a car drove past, breaking their line of sight for a moment. When the car had gone, the figure was no longer there.
"What the fuck...", Jason mouthed.
Evie bit her lip. "W-was that part of the game?", she stuttered.
"I wasn't seeing him through the eyepiece...", Jason answered, "Unless... well, I read something about the technology of these headsets interfacing with brain waves, but I thought that feature was still years away"
Evie turned to look at Jason. "Wait, what, are you saying these things can cause hallucinations?", she asked, incredulous.
Jason shrugged, "The technology has existed for a while now, the CIA was working on it decades ago. I just didn't think it was ready for commercial use. Not to mention the ethics issues"
"Jason, this game is sketchy as fuck already", Evie remarked.
---
Chris, Bianca, and Naima moved together through the graveyard, checking their phones and looking around through their eyepieces to trace the beacon for the second key. Their search took them down a hill and through some trees into a more isolated section of the cemetary that was less well maintained. The grass here was overgrown, and the gravestones were sparse and unmarked.
There had been a sign a while back saying to keep out, that this area was unfinished and trespassers entered at their own risk. In the absence of any lighting from above, the three of them needed to rely on the lights of their phones to see where they were going and make sure they weren't going to walk into an open pit.
Following the light of the beacon with one eye and checking the ground in front of him with the other eye, Chris stepped over rocks and fallen branches and exposed roots to make his way up another hill. Crouching under some tree branches and pushing his way through the foliage, he finally laid eyes on an open grave before him, where the beacon was coming from.
"What the fuck? The key is in an open grave?", Bianca said.
Naima raised her eyebrows. "Wow, that's way edgier than I thought this was going to be", she remarked.
Chris walked up closer and then stopped in his tracks. "No... fucking... way", he said. The gravestone in front of him was etched with his own name, Christopher James Noble, the year of his birth, and the current year.
He looked around quickly at the surrounding trees, not sure if he should expect to find an assassin or a camera crew hiding there. But neither was the case. "Guys, check this out", he said, waving the girls over to point out the stone.
Bianca squinted at the gravestone, "It doesn't say anything... wait, what? Why the fuck is my name on it?!"
Naima objected, "Your name? It says my name"
Chris took off his eyepiece and looked again, just to confirm he was reading the real stone and not the augmented reality version of it. But sure enough, it still said Christopher James Noble. "Uhhh... this is getting weird...", he mumbled.
Standing at the edge of the open grave, he looked down and saw only darkness, until he put his headset back on and the key's beacon light returned.
"Soo...", Bianca said apprehensively, "...someone has to climb in there and get it?"
Naima balked, "That's fucked up..."
"I'll do it...", Chris said with a heavy sigh. He shined his flashlight down into the open pit to check the depth and see what he would be landing on. It looked like just flat clay at the bottom, so put his phone back in his pocket and crouched down by the edge of the grave to jump down in.
"Wait, Chris, what if you get trapped down there?", Bianca said urgently.
Chris answered, "It's only six feet deep. I can climb out". He hopped down into the grave, feeling the firm clay under his feet. Squatting down, he grabbed the key and knocked the dirt loose from it, then stuck it in his pocket. "Okay, I got it", he said.
Turning around, Chris reached up and grabbed the top of the grave and tried to pull himself up, but then his hands slipped on the wet grass and he fell back down. "Chris!", Bianca called out, rushing over to check on him.
"It's fine, I just slipped", he said, dusting himself off and trying a second time. Again, he had a hard time finding purchase on the dirt above, for how much the soft soil gave way and caused his fingers to slip through it.
Naima reached out and grabbed his wrist. "Here. I gotcha", she said, struggling with both hands to pull him up while Bianca tried to get his other hand. Neither of them could apply much strength to the task, but it stabilized his hands enough that Chris was able to push himself up to waist height and then get his knee over the top to roll out of there.
"I told you you were gonna get stuck!", Bianca chastised him, slapping his arm angrily.
Chris brushed the dirt off his clothes, lamenting that his fancy vampire costume was probably stained with mud now. "Well somebody had to do it", he replied.
Naima said, "Well whatever, do you think Kurt is done fucking those sluts by now? I don't care if he is or isn't, mind you, I'm dragging his toxic ass out of here"
"Yeah, let's go find him", Chris said.
---
Unsurprisingly, Kurt didn't answer his text messages or pick up the phone when Chris called. They had to find him the old fashioned way, by fanning out and looking around, and calling his name.
It took a while, but as they were looking around the spot near the front gate where they'd last seen him, Chris heard a low groan coming from behind a row of bushes. He ran forward towards the noise, weaving between the rows of gravestones until he was at the bushes. Stepping around the bushes, he looked down and his face reared back in surprise. "Kurt?", he asked.
There on the ground, Kurt was lying spread eagle in the center of a painted pentagram--at least, one would hope it was drawn with red paint and not actual blood--with his wrists and ankles bound by tent pegs. A lit candle at each of the five points softly flickered in the breeze. But what was most striking at all was what Kurt was wearing: A slutty schoolgirl costume, complete with a tied-up blouse, short skirt, thigh-high fishnet stockings and high-heeled boots. His face was painted with bright red lipstick, blue eyeshadow, and a truly whorish amount of blush.
Kurt himself was groggy, groaning and looking around in a daze. As reality slowly returned to him, so did his memories. "Fuck! Those bitches ripped me off!", he cursed loudly.
Chris crouched down to help untie Kurt. "Where did they go?", he asked.
"Fuck if I know, they knocked me out with something and I just woke up!", Kurt answered. Sitting up, he looked around. "They fuckin' took all my shit, too!", he roared, "I'm gonna find them and fuckin' kill them!"
Chris looked around at the scene, then he spied something on the grass nearby. Checking it with the light on his phone, he called back to Kurt, "Hold up, this looks like your phone and keys and wallet here"
Kurt came over and checked everything. "Fuuuck... so where the fuck is my costume then?", he asked. Then he looked down at himself and saw what he was wearing, and he flipped out.
As it happened, this was the exact moment when Bianca and Naima caught up and saw what had happened. Bianca's eyes went wide in surprise. "Kurt?", she blurted out with a suppressed giggle, "What the fuck?"
Naima meanwhile just took one look at how Kurt was dressed, and burst out laughing.
"Ha ha, very fuckin' funny", Kurt retorted, "Let's see if you laugh when someone does that to you"
Chris couldn't help but smirk as he said, "Dude, you have to admit... they got you good"
Chris said, "That can't be right, they can't make us break and enter private property"
Jason shrugged and pointed to the map display on his gauntlet. "That's where the key's at", he said.
Kurt grinned. "Aww shit, Chris. You're scared?", he teased, "Afraid of breaking a wittle law?"
"Fuck off, asshole", Chris replied. He walked over to the fence and put his hands on it to test how hard it would be to climb it.
Evie spoke up at this point. "I'm not climbing that", she said. Nobody was surprised. Even if she wanted to trespass on private property, there was no way she was hauling her own weight over an eight-foot fence. "You guys do whatever, I'm staying here", she said.
The others looked at one another and then Jason said, "I'll stay here too. You guys go on ahead". Bianca and Naima rolled their eyes. Jason's long-standing crush on Evie was a poorly kept secret.
"Okay!", Chris said, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention, "Everyone who can climb is going over. Everyone else can wait here with Evie"
"I'm in", said Kurt, grabbing the fence.
"I'm in", said Naima.
Chris looked to Bianca, and she hesitated for a bit, then looked back at him and said, "I'm in if you are~"
He couldn't back down after that, and one by one the four of them scaled the fence and climbed over into the cemetary.
One by one, they dropped down inside the graveyard. Kurt was first, and then Naima, and then Chris and Bianca. Jason and Evie stood outside the fence, Jason saying to Chris, "Don't worry, we'll be fine"
Chris checked his phone and read the beacon direction. "Okay, the next key should be...", he started to say.
"That way", said Naima and Bianca at the same time.
The group moved forward, weaving between the gravestones as mere obstacles on the way to their goal.
"A graveyard, though. Pretty fuckin' cliche, don'cha think?", Bianca said to Chris.
Chris shrugged. "Eh, y'know, they don't pay these guys to be original", he answered.
Another alert came in for a monster inbound. The four of them shut up and got into a tight circle to look out in all directions. They watched among the gravestones for any signs of movement. Meanwhile, Jason and Evie outside got the same alert and looked around warily.
Jason said quietly to Evie, "Don't worry I got this"
Evie replied, "Oh, well that's a relief. I was feeling like such a damsel until just now"
Inside the cemetary, the players pulled into a tight circle, but Kurt slowly ventured out. "Yeah?", he called out, "Here I am, monster. Where you at?"
"Man, what are you doing?", Chris whispered.
Kurt just put his hand back to assuage his friend. For a long moment, things were silent and tense. Everyone was watching the top of every grave and the space between them, looking for movement. Kurt strayed further out.
Nobody dared speak. A long silence followed. All eyes searched the darkness.
Then Kurt saw something moving from behind a tree. He slowly approached, keeping his footsteps quiet and his phone out. From behind the tree, a low growl and a subtle movement gave away that something was there.
Kurt checked side to side and approached slowly, quietly. Then he grabbed his crotch like Richard Pryor and shouted, "Motherfuckaa!"
The creature burst from behind the tree in a flash, and in the same flash Kurt brought his phone up and vaporized it with the flashlight.
"Fuck yeah!", he shouted, as soon as he saw it disintegrate into a puff of smoke, "Eat that shit!"
Chris, Bianca, and Naima stood up and walked over, double-checking their phones to confirm that there were no other monsters still around. "Alright, hotshot, don't get cocky", Bianca said.
"How far would you get without me?", Kurt said.
Chris said, "I don't know man, you're the only one who lost a life so far"
"A fluke, bro", Kurt answered, "When I'm at two and you're all at one left, you'll all be running to me for help"
"Chill the fuck out, He-man", Naima said.
Chris said, "More like Sea-man"
Kurt looked back, "Whatever, dude"
Chris followed up, "Tom Cruise has Sea-man on his back"
Kurt just flipped Chris off and continued on his way through the graveyard.
The beacon for the magenta key was pointing to the far side of the cemetary. All four of them began making their way towards it, but on the way, Kurt noticed something: a flash of white skin in the distance.
"Woah, somethin's up", he said to the others, and he started walking towards what he saw.
"Hey where are you...", Chris tried to stop him, but it was useless. Once Kurt was focused on something, he could not be dissuaded.
Kurt continued forward, Chris and Bianca following slightly behind, while Naima kept heading towards the key.
"Bro", Chris whispered out to Kurt, "Where are you going?"
"Just chill", Kurt said, waving Chris off. He kept on walking forward, between the graves. The trees in the distance got closer, and the graves around them easier to see. Chris and Bianca followed, leaving Naima behind.
It was after five minutes of exploration that Kurt came upon a set of graves where he could tell something was up. Behind one of them, he saw a pair of eyes looking back at him. The eyes resolved into a face, which rose up from behind its hiding place to reveal the full body of a naked girl, short and slim as described a fellow college student, with blonde pigtails and a mischievous smile.
"Hey~", said the girl, her lower body still hidden behind a gravestone while her tits were on full display to Kurt.
"...sup", said Kurt, grinning ear to ear.
The girl glanced past Kurt's shoulder at Chris and Bianca who were coming up behind him. Kurt looked over his shoulder and then said to the girl, "Don't worry about them, they're cool"
"Doesn't look like it", said the girl, ducking behind the gravestone.
Kurt turned to Chris and Bianca. "Guys, I got this. Go find the key", he said.
Chris looked over at the girl who was hiding, noting clearly that she was naked. "Ahhh... what's going on?", he asked.
"I told you, I got this", said Kurt.
Bianca scoffed. "Oh my god. Fucking skank", she blurted out.
"Fuck you!", the girl called back from behind her gravestone, flipping her middle finger, "It's caaaalled Wiccanism?".
"Guys, fuck off", Kurt whispered.
Chris continued to stare at the girl behind the gravestone until Bianca pulled at his arm. "I hope you get arrested, slut", she called out, then they made their way back to where Naima was.
Kurt shooed Chris and Bianca away and then advanced forward, grinning at the girl. "Don't listen to them. They're religious or some shit", he said to her.
"I don't mind~", said the girl, revealing herself again for Kurt alone. "Do you wanna hang out with my coven?", she asked, "We need a big strong man for our ritual". In the darkness behind her, Kurt could see another girl was watching him from behind a tree, equally naked.
Kurt coughed and grinned widely. "Fuck yeah, let's go", he said.
---
Outside the cemetary fence, Evie and Jason stood around awkwardly. Jason was looking around anxiously, as if playing lookout for a burglary. Evie spent the time engrossed in her phone. Eventually the silence between them got awkward enough that Jason felt like he had to say something.
"So what do you think of the game so far?", he asked her.
Evie looked up from her phone, raising her eyebrows at Jason. "Oh.. hm, it's okay", she said, "But I can't believe it's making us go to all these weird places"
"Yeah, I was wondering that myself", Jason said, "I guess the developers wanted a more hardcore experience or something"
"Hmm...", Evie demurred. Just then, a sense of foreboding came over her and she felt like she was being watched. She looked over her shoulder and gasped in surprise to see a dark figure standing across the street, perfectly still, watching her and Jason. The features of its body were obscured by shadow, but there was a clear human face, pale as the moonlight, with dark shadowy eyes and thinly drawn lips.
Jason noticed Evie's reaction and looked over as well. A chill went through his body at the sight of the ominous being and the way its dark eyes focused directly on them. "Woah! Who the fuck is that?", he blurted out, quickly lowering his voice.
"He's just... standing there...", Evie whispered.
After what felt like an exceptionally long time staring back and forth, Jason finally worked up the courage to confront the figure. "Hey!", he called out, taking a step forward to put Evie behind him. Evie clutched his arm, trying to dissuade him from talking to the creep, but Jason continued anyway. "Can we help you?", he shouted.
The dark figure did not answer, or react at all, it only continued to stand and stare. Jason wasn't sure what to do next, but then he called out, "Get lost or I'm calling the cops"
Again, the figure did not respond, but ultimately a car drove past, breaking their line of sight for a moment. When the car had gone, the figure was no longer there.
"What the fuck...", Jason mouthed.
Evie bit her lip. "W-was that part of the game?", she stuttered.
"I wasn't seeing him through the eyepiece...", Jason answered, "Unless... well, I read something about the technology of these headsets interfacing with brain waves, but I thought that feature was still years away"
Evie turned to look at Jason. "Wait, what, are you saying these things can cause hallucinations?", she asked, incredulous.
Jason shrugged, "The technology has existed for a while now, the CIA was working on it decades ago. I just didn't think it was ready for commercial use. Not to mention the ethics issues"
"Jason, this game is sketchy as fuck already", Evie remarked.
---
Chris, Bianca, and Naima moved together through the graveyard, checking their phones and looking around through their eyepieces to trace the beacon for the second key. Their search took them down a hill and through some trees into a more isolated section of the cemetary that was less well maintained. The grass here was overgrown, and the gravestones were sparse and unmarked.
There had been a sign a while back saying to keep out, that this area was unfinished and trespassers entered at their own risk. In the absence of any lighting from above, the three of them needed to rely on the lights of their phones to see where they were going and make sure they weren't going to walk into an open pit.
Following the light of the beacon with one eye and checking the ground in front of him with the other eye, Chris stepped over rocks and fallen branches and exposed roots to make his way up another hill. Crouching under some tree branches and pushing his way through the foliage, he finally laid eyes on an open grave before him, where the beacon was coming from.
"What the fuck? The key is in an open grave?", Bianca said.
Naima raised her eyebrows. "Wow, that's way edgier than I thought this was going to be", she remarked.
Chris walked up closer and then stopped in his tracks. "No... fucking... way", he said. The gravestone in front of him was etched with his own name, Christopher James Noble, the year of his birth, and the current year.
He looked around quickly at the surrounding trees, not sure if he should expect to find an assassin or a camera crew hiding there. But neither was the case. "Guys, check this out", he said, waving the girls over to point out the stone.
Bianca squinted at the gravestone, "It doesn't say anything... wait, what? Why the fuck is my name on it?!"
Naima objected, "Your name? It says my name"
Chris took off his eyepiece and looked again, just to confirm he was reading the real stone and not the augmented reality version of it. But sure enough, it still said Christopher James Noble. "Uhhh... this is getting weird...", he mumbled.
Standing at the edge of the open grave, he looked down and saw only darkness, until he put his headset back on and the key's beacon light returned.
"Soo...", Bianca said apprehensively, "...someone has to climb in there and get it?"
Naima balked, "That's fucked up..."
"I'll do it...", Chris said with a heavy sigh. He shined his flashlight down into the open pit to check the depth and see what he would be landing on. It looked like just flat clay at the bottom, so put his phone back in his pocket and crouched down by the edge of the grave to jump down in.
"Wait, Chris, what if you get trapped down there?", Bianca said urgently.
Chris answered, "It's only six feet deep. I can climb out". He hopped down into the grave, feeling the firm clay under his feet. Squatting down, he grabbed the key and knocked the dirt loose from it, then stuck it in his pocket. "Okay, I got it", he said.
Turning around, Chris reached up and grabbed the top of the grave and tried to pull himself up, but then his hands slipped on the wet grass and he fell back down. "Chris!", Bianca called out, rushing over to check on him.
"It's fine, I just slipped", he said, dusting himself off and trying a second time. Again, he had a hard time finding purchase on the dirt above, for how much the soft soil gave way and caused his fingers to slip through it.
Naima reached out and grabbed his wrist. "Here. I gotcha", she said, struggling with both hands to pull him up while Bianca tried to get his other hand. Neither of them could apply much strength to the task, but it stabilized his hands enough that Chris was able to push himself up to waist height and then get his knee over the top to roll out of there.
"I told you you were gonna get stuck!", Bianca chastised him, slapping his arm angrily.
Chris brushed the dirt off his clothes, lamenting that his fancy vampire costume was probably stained with mud now. "Well somebody had to do it", he replied.
Naima said, "Well whatever, do you think Kurt is done fucking those sluts by now? I don't care if he is or isn't, mind you, I'm dragging his toxic ass out of here"
"Yeah, let's go find him", Chris said.
---
Unsurprisingly, Kurt didn't answer his text messages or pick up the phone when Chris called. They had to find him the old fashioned way, by fanning out and looking around, and calling his name.
It took a while, but as they were looking around the spot near the front gate where they'd last seen him, Chris heard a low groan coming from behind a row of bushes. He ran forward towards the noise, weaving between the rows of gravestones until he was at the bushes. Stepping around the bushes, he looked down and his face reared back in surprise. "Kurt?", he asked.
There on the ground, Kurt was lying spread eagle in the center of a painted pentagram--at least, one would hope it was drawn with red paint and not actual blood--with his wrists and ankles bound by tent pegs. A lit candle at each of the five points softly flickered in the breeze. But what was most striking at all was what Kurt was wearing: A slutty schoolgirl costume, complete with a tied-up blouse, short skirt, thigh-high fishnet stockings and high-heeled boots. His face was painted with bright red lipstick, blue eyeshadow, and a truly whorish amount of blush.
Kurt himself was groggy, groaning and looking around in a daze. As reality slowly returned to him, so did his memories. "Fuck! Those bitches ripped me off!", he cursed loudly.
Chris crouched down to help untie Kurt. "Where did they go?", he asked.
"Fuck if I know, they knocked me out with something and I just woke up!", Kurt answered. Sitting up, he looked around. "They fuckin' took all my shit, too!", he roared, "I'm gonna find them and fuckin' kill them!"
Chris looked around at the scene, then he spied something on the grass nearby. Checking it with the light on his phone, he called back to Kurt, "Hold up, this looks like your phone and keys and wallet here"
Kurt came over and checked everything. "Fuuuck... so where the fuck is my costume then?", he asked. Then he looked down at himself and saw what he was wearing, and he flipped out.
As it happened, this was the exact moment when Bianca and Naima caught up and saw what had happened. Bianca's eyes went wide in surprise. "Kurt?", she blurted out with a suppressed giggle, "What the fuck?"
Naima meanwhile just took one look at how Kurt was dressed, and burst out laughing.
"Ha ha, very fuckin' funny", Kurt retorted, "Let's see if you laugh when someone does that to you"
Chris couldn't help but smirk as he said, "Dude, you have to admit... they got you good"
Having regrouped on the street and caught one another up on everything that happened, the six students turned to the task of finding the third key. Kurt was trying to persuade the group to go back to the house instead so he could change out of the ridiculous costume those witches had dressed him in, but Chris told him to stop being a pussy and keep going.
Outvoted, Kurt spent much of the walk wiping his face with his hands to try to get the makeup off. It had very little effect, though, except to smear it all over and make it look even trashier.
The red beacon was showing as being on the far side of the neighbourhood, where the quickest route was through the public park. However, as they began walking this way, the air became noticeably wetter. Dark clouds in the sky were rumbling with blood-red lightning, and a cold and thick fog was rolling across the open grass of the park, turning the trees into jagged and menacing shadows.
Through their eyepieces, it was even spookier. The fog had a scarlet hue, and the droplets of water it left on their skin appeared as thick and dark as fresh blood. The eyepiece also inserted the shapes of unknown creatures darting around among the fog: what could be bats overhead, and wolves afoot, or perhaps it was only birds overhead and raccoons or skunks afoot.
When their phones alerted them to a monster approaching, the students huddled together in a tight circle to watch for it. The monster did them no favours by biding its time, skulking among the fog and drawing out their anxiety while draining away their phone batteries. Evie's battery was already fairly low when the evening started, and it finally died in this moment, making her curse and look to her friends for help.
All of them could hear the snarling beast getting closer, but they could not pinpoint where it was. Each time a black shape would dart by, someone would call out and point to it, but the flashlights on that position revealed nothing but more fog.
"We can't stay here all night, let's keep moving forward", Chris said, urging the group down the paved path through the park that would take them to the next street down.
They slowly shuffled along, still looking out in all directions, when Evie spotted something large moving between two trees up on a nearby hill. "There!", she called out, pointing in that direction. Several flashlights beamed at the shape to reveal a naked man wearing a gorilla mask, furiously masturbating at the top of the hill as he grunted primally.
Evie screamed while Jason and Bianca both looked away in disgust. Kurt and Naima both shouted threats at the man.
"I'm gonna beat your face in!", Kurt shouted.
"I'm gonna rip your dick off!", Naima shouted.
In an instant, he was gone behind the trees, and in that same instant a massive wolf-like monster tore out of the fog from the other side and ripped through the group like a shadowy hurricane.
All six of them got the jolting buzz on their headsets from having lost a life, and the world around became muted and more grey. The wolf monster disappeared back into the fog to resume its hunt elsewhere. "Fuck!", Chris cursed aloud.
Evie sat down on the paved path and hugged her knees. "Guys... I can't", she murmured. Bianca quickly came to her side to comfort her. "You guys go on, I'm not gonna play any more", Evie said.
"Great", Kurt said, "Let's all go back to the house. Fuck this game"
"Shut up", Naima rebuked him, and she joined Bianca in trying to comfort Evie. Chris and Jason sighed, looking around as they thought about what to do next.
"I can take her back home", Jason offered.
Bianca looked back. "No no... Thanks but no, we'll handle this", she told him.
Naima then whispered to Bianca, "I'll take care of her, I was gonna quit anyway. You don't have to-"
"No, I can-", Bianca whispered back.
Naima insisted, "No, stay and have fun. I'll make sure she gets home safe"
The boys continued wandering around as they waited for the girls to decide what to do. At the very least, the delay helped to burn several minutes off the respawn timer.
Finally Bianca stood up and walked over to Chris. Behind her, Naima was helping Evie up to her feet.
"So what's happening?", Chris asked.
"Naima's gonna take her back to her dorm", Bianca told him.
Chris nodded, glancing at Naima and Evie as they started walking down the path in the direction of the college campus. "Are we still playing the game, or what?", he asked Bianca.
"Pff, no!", Kurt said.
"Yes!", Jason insisted.
"We're still playing. Come on, guys. Only two more keys to go", Jason said, trying to rally everyone together.
Chris shrugged. "I'm okay to keep going, what about you, Bi?", he asked.
"Yeah no one ever asks me", said Kurt in the background.
Bianca tugged at the buttons of Chris' costume shirt and smiled at him. "Let's keep going", she said.
Chris smiled back, and then said to Kurt, "You're outvoted three to one"
"This is why democracy doesn't work", Kurt replied.
Chris answered, "You wanna go back, you can go back any time. We're gonna keep going"
Kurt scoffed, but ultimately followed the group. "Someone's gotta look out for your skinny ass", he grumbled.
---
The moon was now high in the sky, and pulsing in a ghostly way. The rumbling clouds which dominated the sky had turned orange-red, as if on fire. Trees and bushes all around looked as if they were withered or burnt to ash. With the passage of the evening, the game had made everything appear even more hellish and bleak than when they started.
Following the beacon brought the four of them to a quiet residential street, where a party was going on in the basement of a small bungalow. Red floodlights were set up in the yard, illuminating the trees out front and several ghosts hanging from them, while thumping music could be heard faintly from the driveway. The windows on the ground floor were dark, but a side entrance into the basement was lit up, with some college-aged boys milling about next to it in a haze of cigarette smoke.
"Now we gotta crash a party...", Kurt grumbled.
Jason wondered, "How did they get a key into someone's basement?"
"Maybe it's somewhere in the yard outside", Chris suggested.
Kurt held back in the bushes by the road. "Guys, I'll pass on this one. No way am I going over there looking like this", he said.
Chris shrugged and said over his shoulder, "We'll make this quick. Just gotta.. ask around, I guess?"
Bianca said, "Don't worry, I can get us in. Let me do the talking"
Chris, Jason, and Bianca walked up the driveway towards a side door where the lights and music were coming from. As they approached, Jason was tracking the beacon on his gauntlet. "It's definitely inside", he told the others.
The guys standing outside the door were all dressed like goth vampires, with long black hair and death metal facepaint, and black outfits that were more suited to a funeral or death cult than to the decadence of Chris' victorian-style costume.
They looked over as they saw the three newcomers arriving, and their eyes lingered on Bianca's slinky costume, obviously checking her out. Chris clenched his jaw and glared back at them, but he kept quiet and let Bianca handle it.
"Hey guys~", Bianca greeted, running a flirty hand through her blonde hair, "Is this where the party is? I was supposed to meet my friend here"
One of the guys responded. He looked older than the others, too old to be in college, with thick biceps and a protruding belly. "Maybe...", he said in a deep voice, "...who's your friend?"
"Justine?", Bianca offered, squinting and gauging their faces, "She's not answering her texts, Do you mind if I go down and check if she's here?"
The older vampire shrugged and gestured to the door with his arm. "Have a look", he said. Bianca thanked him and took Chris by the arm to bring him to the stairs with her. As Jason followed, the older man put out a hand to stop him. "No nerds", he said.
Bianca looked back indignantly. "What? Come on, he's with us", she complained.
"We got a dress code", the man said, "No lame costumes. You don't like it, go find another party"
Jason argued, "Come on, it's not lame...", but he was silenced by a hard death-stare from the taller man. Jason took a timid step back.
Chris looked back at Jason and assured him, "We'll be quick. In and out". He put his arm around Bianca and went downstairs with her while Jason threw up his hands in exasperation.
"Y'all are racist", he snapped, and he walked back down the driveway to hang out with Kurt instead.
The music got progressively louder as Chris and Bianca descended the narrow stairway to a door at the bottom. Pushing it open, the music emerged on full blast, a fast-paced industrial beat with someone rasping the lyrics as if singing in a vampire's voice.
They walked into a room where a makeshift bar had been set up on one side with an assortment of liquor bottles and a minifridge with tomato juice. On the other side of the room, an assortment of couches were occupied by a few more long-haired guys, and some girls, dressed in dark clothing, with vampire makeup on, sipping bloody marys. When they saw Chris and Bianca enter, all eyes looked up, studying the two arrivals intently.
Chris looked back awkwardly, and then gave a mock salute gesture to them. Bianca squeezed his hand and urged him to keep moving and not to linger too long in this place. The app on her phone was showing the key as being just down the hall, and so they went in that direction. All eyes in the room followed them until they were out of sight.
"I don't like this place, these people are a little off", Bianca whispered into Chris' ear as they got a bit further away from the music.
Chris answered, "Yeah, I got that too. Let's just get the key and get out of here"
The hall passed by a couple of doors from which lewd sounds were emerging. It was either a porno somebody was watching, or people were actually having sex in there, and by the nature of the sounds, it was a kinky one involving whips and chains. By the look on Bianca's face, she was not thrilled about being in this hallway a single second longer than she had to.
The hallway turned a corner and Chris recoiled as he was abruptly bumped into by a taller man in a latex gimp suit. "Punish me, daddy!", the gimp pleaded in a desperate voice as he shuffled around with his knees hobbled together and his arms bound behind his back.
"The fuck?!", Chris shouted as he instinctively pushed the gimp away, knocking him into the wall where he collapsed on the floor moaning pathetically. Chris grabbed Bianca's hand and pulled her along quickly. "Come on", he said.
The key beacon was coming from the end of the hall, where there was a small bathroom. Chris hustled Bianca and himself in there and shut the door to block out the sight of the gimp wriggling like a fish on the hallway floor. Bianca whispered heatedly, "What the fuck, Chris, what kind of party is this?!"
"I don't know and I don't care", said Chris as he searched around for the key. He opened up the medicine cabinet and found the key resting on the top shelf. Next to it was a bottle marked as flunitrazepam, commonly known as rohypnol, and beside that was a rolled up garrote wire. On the shelf below, more suspicious items were arrayed, including a scalpel and a box of surgical gloves, and several bottles of different types of sedatives.
Chris quickly grabbed the key, and just then there came a loud knock on the door. Both of them froze in place, and there came a second knock. A deep voice from the other side said, "Who's in there?"
Quietly, Chris reached up to she shelf and grabbed the scalpel before closing the cabinet. "We'll be out in a second", he called back, trying not to let his voice sound too shaky. He palmed the scalpel discreetly against his forearm and looked to Bianca to see if she was ready to go.
Chris opened the door to see the man from before standing on the other side, blocking the hall. "Hey, uhh...", Chris mumbled, "We didn't find her. We're gonna leave. Gonna... try looking somewhere else..."
The larger man stood there silently, staring at Chris.
"So if you could...", Chris added, gesturing that he wanted to step past him.
The man finally shifted aside to let them pass, still staring at both Chris and Bianca. Chris hurried past, still hiding his scalpel in his right hand and holding onto Bianca with his left hand. They hurried down the hall and around the corner, where the gimp as sitting on the floor rocking against the wall in some kind of ecstatic state.
Moving swiftly, they reached the end of the hall and emerged into the party room. But there, they stopped in their tracks to see the door to the stairs being blocked by several of the party guests all standing in a row, staring coldly at the two of them.
"I, uh... What's going on?", Chris asked, as he felt Bianca's nails digging into his wrist.
There was a long and awkward silence as the vampires just stared back at Chris, slowly moving around the room to encircle him and Bianca, while the footsteps of the older male could be heard coming slowly down the hallway from behind them. Chris clutched the scalpel tightly, still hiding it. His heart was racing as he considered whether he was going to have to use it.
"It's almost midnight", said the older vampire as he came into the room. He paced around them to take his place in front of the door. "Midnight is when the party really picks up. You should stay for that", he said.
"Uhhh... no thanks. We really gotta get going", Chris replied.
"You've never been to one of our parties before", said the man, "Everyone should experience it at least once"
Bianca then snapped, "If you don't let us go, we're calling the cops!"
The man smirked and replied, "That will be difficult when your phones have no signal"
Bianca checked her phone and gasped in shock to see that she had no bars for reception. The basement must have been built as a faraday cage to block cell signals. Chris subtly shifted the scalpel in his hand into a forward grip, letting the blade extend slightly past his thumb.
"If you really must go, I will let you go", said the man at the door, "...but". He paused for emphasis, a sly smile growing on his lips, and he said, "Only if one of you sucks my cock"
"Oh God...", Bianca gasped, hyperventilating as Chris held her close. "It has to be me...", she whispered into his ear.
Chris said quietly back to her, "No, you're not gonna do anything for this creep. I'll do it"
"Chris, no...", Bianca protested, "I can't make you do that"
The man at the door was becoming impatient. "What's it going to be?", he bellowed, "Suck my cock or stay for the party?"
Just then the door burst open behind the man, and Kurt and Jason barged into the room. Kurt hammered the man with a sucker punch to the back of his head and kicked him onto the floor. Jason held out his gauntlet to one side of the room, shining the flashlight in the faces of the other so-called vampires there, enough to make them wince and turn their heads as the bright light blinded them.
"Come on, we're leaving!", Kurt shouted.
Chris snapped into action, bringing out the scalpel he was hiding and presenting it at the other vampires on his side of the room to warn them to stay back. He pulled Bianca along and got her into Jason's hands, who shuffled her up the stairs while Kurt and Chris lingered another couple seconds to guard their escape and then ran quickly upstairs after them.
The four of them burst out of the house and ran for the street as fast as they could. They ran off the property and down the street, not stopping until they had turned the corner of the next block and could be sure nobody was chasing after them.
"Holy shit what the fuck was that?!", Chris gasped, wheezing to catch his breath.
Kurt answered, "Jason started poking around after you went in, and we heard some talk about some fucked up sacrifice ritual they were gonna do at midnight"
"Ohmygod..", Bianca gasped, lying down on the street as her lungs burned and heaved.
Jason said, "I don't know, I think that was some kind of cult or something..."
Chris said, "There was some psychotic shit for sure. I found roofies in the fucking bathroom"
"Get the fuck out...", Jason gasped.
"You didn't drink anything, did you?", Kurt asked nervously.
Bianca said, "No, but those people were so weird!"
Having collected himself a bit, Chris took out his phone and dialed 911. He announced to the others, "Alright, I'm done playing this game. I'm gonna call the cops and then we'll go back to the house and chill". Everyone else agreed.
The ringing tone came through a couple times as Chris paced around the dark street breathing heavily and looking around. The line picked up, but there was heavy static. He could vaguely hear a woman's voice answering, "Nine --- one --ergency", but it was hard to make out her words.
Chris spoke loudly into his phone, "Yeah I need the police at...", he looked to his friends and asked, "Guys what was the address?"
The operator said amid heavy static, "Sir, c---------se speak u------ing ------- hearing you"
Chris spoke into the phone again, "Yeah, I'm at the corner of Glenn street and Hawthorn, some people tried to kidnap us at a house party"
On the other end there was nothing but static, until the line went dead. "What?", Chris argued, inspecting the display on his phone, which was showing full signal strength but a terminated call, and a push notification from the Ex Inferis app with a big red X.
"Oh shit, look out!", Kurt shouted.
Chris looked up from his phone to see a dark figure standing on the street only a step away from him. Chris immediately ducked away and ran back a few steps to where his friends were gathered.
The figure gazed at them menacingly, his eyes solid black and his mouth full of small jagged teeth. He was pale like a ghost, but warped like a demon, and shrouded in a shadowy veil. He opened his mouth and a black serpent tongue snaked down over his chin.
"No quitting", he rasped, and with a sudden gust of wind he faded away into smoke.
Everyone was stunned by what happened, especially as Kurt had already taken off his headset but had seen the same apparition as the others.
Chris stared for a long while at the empty street where the figure had previously been. A light drizzle began falling all around them. "The...", he began nervously, "...the app doesn't want me calling the cops..."
"What? That's impossible", Jason objected.
Chris shook his head and said, "Let's just get out of here. We can use the land line back at the house"
Outvoted, Kurt spent much of the walk wiping his face with his hands to try to get the makeup off. It had very little effect, though, except to smear it all over and make it look even trashier.
The red beacon was showing as being on the far side of the neighbourhood, where the quickest route was through the public park. However, as they began walking this way, the air became noticeably wetter. Dark clouds in the sky were rumbling with blood-red lightning, and a cold and thick fog was rolling across the open grass of the park, turning the trees into jagged and menacing shadows.
Through their eyepieces, it was even spookier. The fog had a scarlet hue, and the droplets of water it left on their skin appeared as thick and dark as fresh blood. The eyepiece also inserted the shapes of unknown creatures darting around among the fog: what could be bats overhead, and wolves afoot, or perhaps it was only birds overhead and raccoons or skunks afoot.
When their phones alerted them to a monster approaching, the students huddled together in a tight circle to watch for it. The monster did them no favours by biding its time, skulking among the fog and drawing out their anxiety while draining away their phone batteries. Evie's battery was already fairly low when the evening started, and it finally died in this moment, making her curse and look to her friends for help.
All of them could hear the snarling beast getting closer, but they could not pinpoint where it was. Each time a black shape would dart by, someone would call out and point to it, but the flashlights on that position revealed nothing but more fog.
"We can't stay here all night, let's keep moving forward", Chris said, urging the group down the paved path through the park that would take them to the next street down.
They slowly shuffled along, still looking out in all directions, when Evie spotted something large moving between two trees up on a nearby hill. "There!", she called out, pointing in that direction. Several flashlights beamed at the shape to reveal a naked man wearing a gorilla mask, furiously masturbating at the top of the hill as he grunted primally.
Evie screamed while Jason and Bianca both looked away in disgust. Kurt and Naima both shouted threats at the man.
"I'm gonna beat your face in!", Kurt shouted.
"I'm gonna rip your dick off!", Naima shouted.
In an instant, he was gone behind the trees, and in that same instant a massive wolf-like monster tore out of the fog from the other side and ripped through the group like a shadowy hurricane.
All six of them got the jolting buzz on their headsets from having lost a life, and the world around became muted and more grey. The wolf monster disappeared back into the fog to resume its hunt elsewhere. "Fuck!", Chris cursed aloud.
Evie sat down on the paved path and hugged her knees. "Guys... I can't", she murmured. Bianca quickly came to her side to comfort her. "You guys go on, I'm not gonna play any more", Evie said.
"Great", Kurt said, "Let's all go back to the house. Fuck this game"
"Shut up", Naima rebuked him, and she joined Bianca in trying to comfort Evie. Chris and Jason sighed, looking around as they thought about what to do next.
"I can take her back home", Jason offered.
Bianca looked back. "No no... Thanks but no, we'll handle this", she told him.
Naima then whispered to Bianca, "I'll take care of her, I was gonna quit anyway. You don't have to-"
"No, I can-", Bianca whispered back.
Naima insisted, "No, stay and have fun. I'll make sure she gets home safe"
The boys continued wandering around as they waited for the girls to decide what to do. At the very least, the delay helped to burn several minutes off the respawn timer.
Finally Bianca stood up and walked over to Chris. Behind her, Naima was helping Evie up to her feet.
"So what's happening?", Chris asked.
"Naima's gonna take her back to her dorm", Bianca told him.
Chris nodded, glancing at Naima and Evie as they started walking down the path in the direction of the college campus. "Are we still playing the game, or what?", he asked Bianca.
"Pff, no!", Kurt said.
"Yes!", Jason insisted.
"We're still playing. Come on, guys. Only two more keys to go", Jason said, trying to rally everyone together.
Chris shrugged. "I'm okay to keep going, what about you, Bi?", he asked.
"Yeah no one ever asks me", said Kurt in the background.
Bianca tugged at the buttons of Chris' costume shirt and smiled at him. "Let's keep going", she said.
Chris smiled back, and then said to Kurt, "You're outvoted three to one"
"This is why democracy doesn't work", Kurt replied.
Chris answered, "You wanna go back, you can go back any time. We're gonna keep going"
Kurt scoffed, but ultimately followed the group. "Someone's gotta look out for your skinny ass", he grumbled.
---
The moon was now high in the sky, and pulsing in a ghostly way. The rumbling clouds which dominated the sky had turned orange-red, as if on fire. Trees and bushes all around looked as if they were withered or burnt to ash. With the passage of the evening, the game had made everything appear even more hellish and bleak than when they started.
Following the beacon brought the four of them to a quiet residential street, where a party was going on in the basement of a small bungalow. Red floodlights were set up in the yard, illuminating the trees out front and several ghosts hanging from them, while thumping music could be heard faintly from the driveway. The windows on the ground floor were dark, but a side entrance into the basement was lit up, with some college-aged boys milling about next to it in a haze of cigarette smoke.
"Now we gotta crash a party...", Kurt grumbled.
Jason wondered, "How did they get a key into someone's basement?"
"Maybe it's somewhere in the yard outside", Chris suggested.
Kurt held back in the bushes by the road. "Guys, I'll pass on this one. No way am I going over there looking like this", he said.
Chris shrugged and said over his shoulder, "We'll make this quick. Just gotta.. ask around, I guess?"
Bianca said, "Don't worry, I can get us in. Let me do the talking"
Chris, Jason, and Bianca walked up the driveway towards a side door where the lights and music were coming from. As they approached, Jason was tracking the beacon on his gauntlet. "It's definitely inside", he told the others.
The guys standing outside the door were all dressed like goth vampires, with long black hair and death metal facepaint, and black outfits that were more suited to a funeral or death cult than to the decadence of Chris' victorian-style costume.
They looked over as they saw the three newcomers arriving, and their eyes lingered on Bianca's slinky costume, obviously checking her out. Chris clenched his jaw and glared back at them, but he kept quiet and let Bianca handle it.
"Hey guys~", Bianca greeted, running a flirty hand through her blonde hair, "Is this where the party is? I was supposed to meet my friend here"
One of the guys responded. He looked older than the others, too old to be in college, with thick biceps and a protruding belly. "Maybe...", he said in a deep voice, "...who's your friend?"
"Justine?", Bianca offered, squinting and gauging their faces, "She's not answering her texts, Do you mind if I go down and check if she's here?"
The older vampire shrugged and gestured to the door with his arm. "Have a look", he said. Bianca thanked him and took Chris by the arm to bring him to the stairs with her. As Jason followed, the older man put out a hand to stop him. "No nerds", he said.
Bianca looked back indignantly. "What? Come on, he's with us", she complained.
"We got a dress code", the man said, "No lame costumes. You don't like it, go find another party"
Jason argued, "Come on, it's not lame...", but he was silenced by a hard death-stare from the taller man. Jason took a timid step back.
Chris looked back at Jason and assured him, "We'll be quick. In and out". He put his arm around Bianca and went downstairs with her while Jason threw up his hands in exasperation.
"Y'all are racist", he snapped, and he walked back down the driveway to hang out with Kurt instead.
The music got progressively louder as Chris and Bianca descended the narrow stairway to a door at the bottom. Pushing it open, the music emerged on full blast, a fast-paced industrial beat with someone rasping the lyrics as if singing in a vampire's voice.
They walked into a room where a makeshift bar had been set up on one side with an assortment of liquor bottles and a minifridge with tomato juice. On the other side of the room, an assortment of couches were occupied by a few more long-haired guys, and some girls, dressed in dark clothing, with vampire makeup on, sipping bloody marys. When they saw Chris and Bianca enter, all eyes looked up, studying the two arrivals intently.
Chris looked back awkwardly, and then gave a mock salute gesture to them. Bianca squeezed his hand and urged him to keep moving and not to linger too long in this place. The app on her phone was showing the key as being just down the hall, and so they went in that direction. All eyes in the room followed them until they were out of sight.
"I don't like this place, these people are a little off", Bianca whispered into Chris' ear as they got a bit further away from the music.
Chris answered, "Yeah, I got that too. Let's just get the key and get out of here"
The hall passed by a couple of doors from which lewd sounds were emerging. It was either a porno somebody was watching, or people were actually having sex in there, and by the nature of the sounds, it was a kinky one involving whips and chains. By the look on Bianca's face, she was not thrilled about being in this hallway a single second longer than she had to.
The hallway turned a corner and Chris recoiled as he was abruptly bumped into by a taller man in a latex gimp suit. "Punish me, daddy!", the gimp pleaded in a desperate voice as he shuffled around with his knees hobbled together and his arms bound behind his back.
"The fuck?!", Chris shouted as he instinctively pushed the gimp away, knocking him into the wall where he collapsed on the floor moaning pathetically. Chris grabbed Bianca's hand and pulled her along quickly. "Come on", he said.
The key beacon was coming from the end of the hall, where there was a small bathroom. Chris hustled Bianca and himself in there and shut the door to block out the sight of the gimp wriggling like a fish on the hallway floor. Bianca whispered heatedly, "What the fuck, Chris, what kind of party is this?!"
"I don't know and I don't care", said Chris as he searched around for the key. He opened up the medicine cabinet and found the key resting on the top shelf. Next to it was a bottle marked as flunitrazepam, commonly known as rohypnol, and beside that was a rolled up garrote wire. On the shelf below, more suspicious items were arrayed, including a scalpel and a box of surgical gloves, and several bottles of different types of sedatives.
Chris quickly grabbed the key, and just then there came a loud knock on the door. Both of them froze in place, and there came a second knock. A deep voice from the other side said, "Who's in there?"
Quietly, Chris reached up to she shelf and grabbed the scalpel before closing the cabinet. "We'll be out in a second", he called back, trying not to let his voice sound too shaky. He palmed the scalpel discreetly against his forearm and looked to Bianca to see if she was ready to go.
Chris opened the door to see the man from before standing on the other side, blocking the hall. "Hey, uhh...", Chris mumbled, "We didn't find her. We're gonna leave. Gonna... try looking somewhere else..."
The larger man stood there silently, staring at Chris.
"So if you could...", Chris added, gesturing that he wanted to step past him.
The man finally shifted aside to let them pass, still staring at both Chris and Bianca. Chris hurried past, still hiding his scalpel in his right hand and holding onto Bianca with his left hand. They hurried down the hall and around the corner, where the gimp as sitting on the floor rocking against the wall in some kind of ecstatic state.
Moving swiftly, they reached the end of the hall and emerged into the party room. But there, they stopped in their tracks to see the door to the stairs being blocked by several of the party guests all standing in a row, staring coldly at the two of them.
"I, uh... What's going on?", Chris asked, as he felt Bianca's nails digging into his wrist.
There was a long and awkward silence as the vampires just stared back at Chris, slowly moving around the room to encircle him and Bianca, while the footsteps of the older male could be heard coming slowly down the hallway from behind them. Chris clutched the scalpel tightly, still hiding it. His heart was racing as he considered whether he was going to have to use it.
"It's almost midnight", said the older vampire as he came into the room. He paced around them to take his place in front of the door. "Midnight is when the party really picks up. You should stay for that", he said.
"Uhhh... no thanks. We really gotta get going", Chris replied.
"You've never been to one of our parties before", said the man, "Everyone should experience it at least once"
Bianca then snapped, "If you don't let us go, we're calling the cops!"
The man smirked and replied, "That will be difficult when your phones have no signal"
Bianca checked her phone and gasped in shock to see that she had no bars for reception. The basement must have been built as a faraday cage to block cell signals. Chris subtly shifted the scalpel in his hand into a forward grip, letting the blade extend slightly past his thumb.
"If you really must go, I will let you go", said the man at the door, "...but". He paused for emphasis, a sly smile growing on his lips, and he said, "Only if one of you sucks my cock"
"Oh God...", Bianca gasped, hyperventilating as Chris held her close. "It has to be me...", she whispered into his ear.
Chris said quietly back to her, "No, you're not gonna do anything for this creep. I'll do it"
"Chris, no...", Bianca protested, "I can't make you do that"
The man at the door was becoming impatient. "What's it going to be?", he bellowed, "Suck my cock or stay for the party?"
Just then the door burst open behind the man, and Kurt and Jason barged into the room. Kurt hammered the man with a sucker punch to the back of his head and kicked him onto the floor. Jason held out his gauntlet to one side of the room, shining the flashlight in the faces of the other so-called vampires there, enough to make them wince and turn their heads as the bright light blinded them.
"Come on, we're leaving!", Kurt shouted.
Chris snapped into action, bringing out the scalpel he was hiding and presenting it at the other vampires on his side of the room to warn them to stay back. He pulled Bianca along and got her into Jason's hands, who shuffled her up the stairs while Kurt and Chris lingered another couple seconds to guard their escape and then ran quickly upstairs after them.
The four of them burst out of the house and ran for the street as fast as they could. They ran off the property and down the street, not stopping until they had turned the corner of the next block and could be sure nobody was chasing after them.
"Holy shit what the fuck was that?!", Chris gasped, wheezing to catch his breath.
Kurt answered, "Jason started poking around after you went in, and we heard some talk about some fucked up sacrifice ritual they were gonna do at midnight"
"Ohmygod..", Bianca gasped, lying down on the street as her lungs burned and heaved.
Jason said, "I don't know, I think that was some kind of cult or something..."
Chris said, "There was some psychotic shit for sure. I found roofies in the fucking bathroom"
"Get the fuck out...", Jason gasped.
"You didn't drink anything, did you?", Kurt asked nervously.
Bianca said, "No, but those people were so weird!"
Having collected himself a bit, Chris took out his phone and dialed 911. He announced to the others, "Alright, I'm done playing this game. I'm gonna call the cops and then we'll go back to the house and chill". Everyone else agreed.
The ringing tone came through a couple times as Chris paced around the dark street breathing heavily and looking around. The line picked up, but there was heavy static. He could vaguely hear a woman's voice answering, "Nine --- one --ergency", but it was hard to make out her words.
Chris spoke loudly into his phone, "Yeah I need the police at...", he looked to his friends and asked, "Guys what was the address?"
The operator said amid heavy static, "Sir, c---------se speak u------ing ------- hearing you"
Chris spoke into the phone again, "Yeah, I'm at the corner of Glenn street and Hawthorn, some people tried to kidnap us at a house party"
On the other end there was nothing but static, until the line went dead. "What?", Chris argued, inspecting the display on his phone, which was showing full signal strength but a terminated call, and a push notification from the Ex Inferis app with a big red X.
"Oh shit, look out!", Kurt shouted.
Chris looked up from his phone to see a dark figure standing on the street only a step away from him. Chris immediately ducked away and ran back a few steps to where his friends were gathered.
The figure gazed at them menacingly, his eyes solid black and his mouth full of small jagged teeth. He was pale like a ghost, but warped like a demon, and shrouded in a shadowy veil. He opened his mouth and a black serpent tongue snaked down over his chin.
"No quitting", he rasped, and with a sudden gust of wind he faded away into smoke.
Everyone was stunned by what happened, especially as Kurt had already taken off his headset but had seen the same apparition as the others.
Chris stared for a long while at the empty street where the figure had previously been. A light drizzle began falling all around them. "The...", he began nervously, "...the app doesn't want me calling the cops..."
"What? That's impossible", Jason objected.
Chris shook his head and said, "Let's just get out of here. We can use the land line back at the house"
The time was well past midnight when they arrived back at the house the three boys were renting. Even without their headsets on, the neighbourhood appeared dark and desolate. Rain and the late hour had drove all the trick-or-treaters off the streets, making them feel eerily vacant and quiet.
Jason hurriedly unlocked the door so they could all get inside and get out of the rain. They had never been so relieved as now to be home. But the relief was short-lived. In the center of the room, the swirling portal to Hell had grown larger, encompasing the couches and much of the floorspace now. What was worse, there were heavy iron chains hanging from the ceiling all around the portal, and on the ends of these chains were human body parts that were dripping fresh blood all over the floor.
The four of them were stunned at the sight, and then Jason stepped closer and opened his mouth in shock to see, hanging from the chain right in front of him, Naima's severed head. The next chain over had one of her arms, still in the sleeve of her torn costume. Another chain had one of her legs. Her torso was impaled on a spike further back.
Bianca screamed and fell to her knees. Kurt grabbed his head in shock. Chris got down next to Bianca to pull her into him. Jason then noticed movement in the far corner of the kitchen, by the fridge.
"Guys, someone's here!", he warned.
Moving through the shadows there was a man in a black hoodie with a knife in his hand. He stepped quickly around the kitchen counter and advanced on the group.
Kurt shouted, "I'll kill you motherfucker!", and charged at the killer. He threw a strong power punch at the man's jaw, but the killer weaved back out of the way and came in with many quick slashes of his knife across Kurt's arms that sent streams of blood flying across the room and painting the walls.
"No!! Kurt!!", Bianca shouted as she watched her friend being slashed. Chris grabbed her and pulled her out of the house. Jason had already fled a step ahead of them.
They burst out onto the driveway and ran at full speed, their shoes slapping loudly on the wet pavement. Thunder boomed overhead. "Come on!", Jason yelled to his friends, urging them to run faster. In the darkness and rain, it was impossible to keep track of anything. The killer had long since disappeared from sight, and yet it was a safe bet that he could be lurking anywhere.
As they ran out of breath and had to stop, they pulled into a tight circle on the open street and looked around in all directions for any sign of their pursuer. Jason pulled out his phone and tried calling 911, hoping his call might get through where Chris' had failed. Bianca did the same thing. Both were met with the line picking up to the sound of heavy breathing, and then the familiar rasping voice: "No quitting!"
Jason looked around, pulling his headset back on. A familiar yellow glow in the distant sky marked the direction toward the fourth and final key. "Guys...", Jason croaked, his voice shaking, "...I think we have to finish the game"
"What kind of sick game is this?!", Chris shouted back.
Jason coughed, verging on sobbing, "I'm sorry guys. I didn't know it would end up like this..."
"There was no way you could have known", Bianca said.
"Oh shit, look!", Chris then interrupted, pointing down the street to where a dark figure was lurching through the light of a street lamp. It wasn't the killer though. The man was stumbling and clutching his side.
Chris took a couple steps closer and said, "Oh shit that's Kurt!" He started running at once.
Kurt waved his arm weakly as he hobbled along. He was obviously leaking blood and could barely stand upright.
"Kurt!!", Chris called out.
Kuuurt!!!", Bianca called after him.
Jason went to help as well, even as he noticed an alert on his headset that monsters were inbound. By the time he saw it, it was too late for Jason to do anything. A dark and demonic creature appeared in his eyepiece from behind Kurt. Kurt clearly did not see it, nor did Chris and Bianca, as they weren't wearing their headsets.
Jason called out, "Kurt, behind you!"
Kurt turned around, looking for the killer but seeing nothing. But Jason saw everything. The monster bounded across the street toward Kurt and then rose up on its hind legs. A long and jagged blade of bone revealed itself, and the monster drove it through Kurt's chest, piercing him fully so that two feet of blade came out his back. But unlike the previous time a monster had got him, this time Kurt's whole body lifted from the ground and twitched grotesquely. Chris and Bianca stopped in their tracks.
Gurgles of blood escaped Kurt's throat as he appeared to the others as if he were floating in the air as if possessed. Jason, seeing the beast that killed him, ran closer and beamed the light from his gauntlet to banish the monster. Kurt's body immediately flopped to the street and Chris ran over to attend to him.
In Kurt's pocket, his phone displayed a message that he had run out of lives and was now out of the game.
"Put your headsets back on!", Jason shouted as he looked all around with his gauntlet raised, "Jesus Christ, you'll die for real if they get you!"
It took some time for Chris and Bianca to come to grips with the death they had witnessed so far. Chris kept staring down at Kurt's lifeless face after pulling his eyelids closed. Bianca turned away and tried to call the police again, to no effect. She tried calling Evie's cell phone and the call went straight to voice mail, due to Evie's battery being dead.
Then Bianca hesitantly called Naima's phone. She heard the call going through for three rings, and then someone picked up. There was a long silence as Bianca just listened to someone breathing on the other end, without saying anything. Then a man's voice came through. "No quitting. If you don't finish by sunrise, your souls are mine"
Bianca hung up quickly and looked at the boys. Jason read the fear on her face and looked to Chris, who was just standing up. Feeling a pressure to put words to what both of them were wondering, Jason said, "The game is called Ex Inferis... From Hell. At first I thought that meant the monsters and everything were coming out of hell into our world, but it's the opposite... we need to escape from hell"
"Libera te tutemet...", Chris mumbled, remembering that old movie. The screenwriter had gotten a bit creative with his latin grammar, but it still worked.
Jason nodded and said, "Something like that"
Bianca asked warily, "So where's the last key..."
Jason pointed off in a diagonal direction to the street grid. "That way", he said.
---
Following the beacon took them out of their suburban neighbourhood and across a set of railway tracks into the industrial part of the city. As the scenery shifted, the real world and the augmented world began to blur together. Groups of darkly-dressed people with lanterns were walking the streets in the distance, moving in unison as if in a cult. Whether they were real people or demons was hard to say, so long as they remained distant.
Distant sounds of screaming and gunshots and colliding vehicles echoed through the streets. One could only imagine what sort of violence was happening several blocks away. The three students tried to keep their movements quiet and their profile minimal. Running into game world monsters was one thing, but there were also violent gangs living in this part of the city, who took Halloween as an excuse to go out and spread mayhem at random.
There was now a dim light over everything, coming from the sky above. The clouds burned with orange flames, casting everything into stark silhouette. Everyone moved carefully through the streets and back alleys, ready for anything.
In the open streets, they ducked for cover every time a vehicle appeared. There was no way to know at a distance if the headlights approaching belonged to someone friendly or hostile, and it was better to take no chances.
Sometimes it was a sports care with someone in the passenger seat brandishing one or more guns, taking blind shots at the scenery to ring in samhain. Other times it was an ominous looking commercial van driving slowly and running a spotlight over the sidewalks and alleys. On one occasion there was even an ambulance smeared with blood and decorated with human body parts and bladed protrusions.
In the back alleys, every shadow was a concern. There was precious little space to escape if someone wanted to do them harm. As they passed a dumpster in one such alley, the lid slowly opened up and an arm reached out to grab at Bianca. Chris quickly spun around and grabbed the attacker's wrist. There was a silent tug of war, and the lid raised further, revealing a pair of eyes looking back at Chris evilly. But when Chris pulled the scalpel out of his belt and held it threateningly to the attacker's wrist, the lid lowered slowly back down. Chris let go and allowed the man to retreat under the closed lid.
Along the way, Jason found a four-foot piece of 3/4-inch steel rebar in a trash heap, and picked it up. He did not want to be unarmed any longer in this place, on this night, and so he clutched it tight in his hand as the group continued forward.
The beacon led them to a non-descript short concrete building with a blank metal door on the outside. The door was propped open by a wooden doorstop. The three of them approached with caution, naturally assuming someone must be inside. But as Chris opened the door a crack further and stuck his head in, he did not see anyone in there.
Columns of machinery were humming in the dark. Bianca pulled out her phone to cast some light on the room. Everything was as still as a tomb as the three of them walked inside. At the far end of the room was a ladder leading down into what looked like a sewer catwalk. Nobody said a word, they just looked at one another and then Chris took it upon himself to descend down into the tunnels below.
Jason hurriedly unlocked the door so they could all get inside and get out of the rain. They had never been so relieved as now to be home. But the relief was short-lived. In the center of the room, the swirling portal to Hell had grown larger, encompasing the couches and much of the floorspace now. What was worse, there were heavy iron chains hanging from the ceiling all around the portal, and on the ends of these chains were human body parts that were dripping fresh blood all over the floor.
The four of them were stunned at the sight, and then Jason stepped closer and opened his mouth in shock to see, hanging from the chain right in front of him, Naima's severed head. The next chain over had one of her arms, still in the sleeve of her torn costume. Another chain had one of her legs. Her torso was impaled on a spike further back.
Bianca screamed and fell to her knees. Kurt grabbed his head in shock. Chris got down next to Bianca to pull her into him. Jason then noticed movement in the far corner of the kitchen, by the fridge.
"Guys, someone's here!", he warned.
Moving through the shadows there was a man in a black hoodie with a knife in his hand. He stepped quickly around the kitchen counter and advanced on the group.
Kurt shouted, "I'll kill you motherfucker!", and charged at the killer. He threw a strong power punch at the man's jaw, but the killer weaved back out of the way and came in with many quick slashes of his knife across Kurt's arms that sent streams of blood flying across the room and painting the walls.
"No!! Kurt!!", Bianca shouted as she watched her friend being slashed. Chris grabbed her and pulled her out of the house. Jason had already fled a step ahead of them.
They burst out onto the driveway and ran at full speed, their shoes slapping loudly on the wet pavement. Thunder boomed overhead. "Come on!", Jason yelled to his friends, urging them to run faster. In the darkness and rain, it was impossible to keep track of anything. The killer had long since disappeared from sight, and yet it was a safe bet that he could be lurking anywhere.
As they ran out of breath and had to stop, they pulled into a tight circle on the open street and looked around in all directions for any sign of their pursuer. Jason pulled out his phone and tried calling 911, hoping his call might get through where Chris' had failed. Bianca did the same thing. Both were met with the line picking up to the sound of heavy breathing, and then the familiar rasping voice: "No quitting!"
Jason looked around, pulling his headset back on. A familiar yellow glow in the distant sky marked the direction toward the fourth and final key. "Guys...", Jason croaked, his voice shaking, "...I think we have to finish the game"
"What kind of sick game is this?!", Chris shouted back.
Jason coughed, verging on sobbing, "I'm sorry guys. I didn't know it would end up like this..."
"There was no way you could have known", Bianca said.
"Oh shit, look!", Chris then interrupted, pointing down the street to where a dark figure was lurching through the light of a street lamp. It wasn't the killer though. The man was stumbling and clutching his side.
Chris took a couple steps closer and said, "Oh shit that's Kurt!" He started running at once.
Kurt waved his arm weakly as he hobbled along. He was obviously leaking blood and could barely stand upright.
"Kurt!!", Chris called out.
Kuuurt!!!", Bianca called after him.
Jason went to help as well, even as he noticed an alert on his headset that monsters were inbound. By the time he saw it, it was too late for Jason to do anything. A dark and demonic creature appeared in his eyepiece from behind Kurt. Kurt clearly did not see it, nor did Chris and Bianca, as they weren't wearing their headsets.
Jason called out, "Kurt, behind you!"
Kurt turned around, looking for the killer but seeing nothing. But Jason saw everything. The monster bounded across the street toward Kurt and then rose up on its hind legs. A long and jagged blade of bone revealed itself, and the monster drove it through Kurt's chest, piercing him fully so that two feet of blade came out his back. But unlike the previous time a monster had got him, this time Kurt's whole body lifted from the ground and twitched grotesquely. Chris and Bianca stopped in their tracks.
Gurgles of blood escaped Kurt's throat as he appeared to the others as if he were floating in the air as if possessed. Jason, seeing the beast that killed him, ran closer and beamed the light from his gauntlet to banish the monster. Kurt's body immediately flopped to the street and Chris ran over to attend to him.
In Kurt's pocket, his phone displayed a message that he had run out of lives and was now out of the game.
"Put your headsets back on!", Jason shouted as he looked all around with his gauntlet raised, "Jesus Christ, you'll die for real if they get you!"
It took some time for Chris and Bianca to come to grips with the death they had witnessed so far. Chris kept staring down at Kurt's lifeless face after pulling his eyelids closed. Bianca turned away and tried to call the police again, to no effect. She tried calling Evie's cell phone and the call went straight to voice mail, due to Evie's battery being dead.
Then Bianca hesitantly called Naima's phone. She heard the call going through for three rings, and then someone picked up. There was a long silence as Bianca just listened to someone breathing on the other end, without saying anything. Then a man's voice came through. "No quitting. If you don't finish by sunrise, your souls are mine"
Bianca hung up quickly and looked at the boys. Jason read the fear on her face and looked to Chris, who was just standing up. Feeling a pressure to put words to what both of them were wondering, Jason said, "The game is called Ex Inferis... From Hell. At first I thought that meant the monsters and everything were coming out of hell into our world, but it's the opposite... we need to escape from hell"
"Libera te tutemet...", Chris mumbled, remembering that old movie. The screenwriter had gotten a bit creative with his latin grammar, but it still worked.
Jason nodded and said, "Something like that"
Bianca asked warily, "So where's the last key..."
Jason pointed off in a diagonal direction to the street grid. "That way", he said.
---
Following the beacon took them out of their suburban neighbourhood and across a set of railway tracks into the industrial part of the city. As the scenery shifted, the real world and the augmented world began to blur together. Groups of darkly-dressed people with lanterns were walking the streets in the distance, moving in unison as if in a cult. Whether they were real people or demons was hard to say, so long as they remained distant.
Distant sounds of screaming and gunshots and colliding vehicles echoed through the streets. One could only imagine what sort of violence was happening several blocks away. The three students tried to keep their movements quiet and their profile minimal. Running into game world monsters was one thing, but there were also violent gangs living in this part of the city, who took Halloween as an excuse to go out and spread mayhem at random.
There was now a dim light over everything, coming from the sky above. The clouds burned with orange flames, casting everything into stark silhouette. Everyone moved carefully through the streets and back alleys, ready for anything.
In the open streets, they ducked for cover every time a vehicle appeared. There was no way to know at a distance if the headlights approaching belonged to someone friendly or hostile, and it was better to take no chances.
Sometimes it was a sports care with someone in the passenger seat brandishing one or more guns, taking blind shots at the scenery to ring in samhain. Other times it was an ominous looking commercial van driving slowly and running a spotlight over the sidewalks and alleys. On one occasion there was even an ambulance smeared with blood and decorated with human body parts and bladed protrusions.
In the back alleys, every shadow was a concern. There was precious little space to escape if someone wanted to do them harm. As they passed a dumpster in one such alley, the lid slowly opened up and an arm reached out to grab at Bianca. Chris quickly spun around and grabbed the attacker's wrist. There was a silent tug of war, and the lid raised further, revealing a pair of eyes looking back at Chris evilly. But when Chris pulled the scalpel out of his belt and held it threateningly to the attacker's wrist, the lid lowered slowly back down. Chris let go and allowed the man to retreat under the closed lid.
Along the way, Jason found a four-foot piece of 3/4-inch steel rebar in a trash heap, and picked it up. He did not want to be unarmed any longer in this place, on this night, and so he clutched it tight in his hand as the group continued forward.
The beacon led them to a non-descript short concrete building with a blank metal door on the outside. The door was propped open by a wooden doorstop. The three of them approached with caution, naturally assuming someone must be inside. But as Chris opened the door a crack further and stuck his head in, he did not see anyone in there.
Columns of machinery were humming in the dark. Bianca pulled out her phone to cast some light on the room. Everything was as still as a tomb as the three of them walked inside. At the far end of the room was a ladder leading down into what looked like a sewer catwalk. Nobody said a word, they just looked at one another and then Chris took it upon himself to descend down into the tunnels below.
The sound of rushing water greeted Chris as he climbed down the ladder. It was dark down here, but there were small electric lights at regular intervals to show the path. A metal catwalk extended outward from the ladder. On the right side, industrial machinery was embedded into the arching concrete wall. On the left side, there was darkness, and glimpses of the water's surface flowing along several feet beneath the catwalk.
Electric hums and hydraulic thunks came from the line of machines as they chugged away at whatever they were built for. This was clearly some kind of maintenance access tunnel, but the yellow beacon in Chris' eyepiece showed that he was on the right track, and the key had to be somewhere down this catwalk.
"It's all clear", Chris called up to the others above. Jason started climbing down, with Bianca waiting to follow him. But as they were climbing, Chris was alerted to a sudden shifting of the shadows under his feet.
He looked up to see a towering creature emerging from between two of the machines. It stood on two legs like a man, but its profile in silhouette was distinctly inhuman, with a large bulbous head and thin chitinous arms and claws that resembled an insect or crustacean. The creature was upon Chris before he could react, lurching into him and nearly pushing him over the railing of the catwalk.
Chris looked up at the shadow that was bearing down upon him. He felt the force of its spiny arm pushing against his shoulder, and heard the snap of its claws right next to his ear as he weaved his head out of the way. In the dim industrial lighting it was difficult to see more than mere shadow, but as the creature loomed over him, Chris noted the distinctive contours of giant black compound eyes, and a set of slathering mandibles that were encroaching upon his face.
"Chris!", Jason shouted. Still on the ladder, Jason could see his friend grappling with the inhuman monster in the dim subterranean light. He jumped off the ladder and grabbed one of the monster's arms, trying to pry it off of Chris.
It gave Chris just enough space to pull the scalpel from where he'd tucked it into his belt, and he drove the point deep into the monster's neck with as much strength as he could muster. The monster's balance faltered, and Chris pushed it back against the machines behind it, stabbing it continuously in the neck and then the eyes. The monster shrieked horribly under the assault and slumped down onto the catwalk, Chris reversing his grip on the scalpel and continuing to stab it repeatedly from above.
Jason came around to the other side of it and shone his flashlight down on the dying abomination to get a better look at it. At the same time Bianca came down the ladder and cupped her hands over her mouth at the hideous sight. "What the fuck is that?", she gasped.
Chris grunted angrily and finally stood up. "Fuck if I know, but it's dead now", he growled, his chest heaving as he caught his breath.
Jason said, "Now we have to fight real monsters..."
Bianca stared at the dead creature for a long while, and then she abruptly squatted over it and grabbed one of its claw arms. She wiggled it back and forth until the carapace cracked and she felt it pulling loose. She stood up with the detached half of the claw in her hand to see the boys looking at her strangely. "If we're fighting for real, I'm not gonna be the only one without a weapon", she said matter-of-factly, gripping the claw tightly at the base like an improvised knife.
Chris nodded, pulling his scalpel out of the creature's face and holding it firmly in his hand. "Alright, let's go", he said.
---
The catwalk continued for a good distance, with very little variation in scenery. Jason led the way with his gauntlet lit up, since he had the most battery life left compared to the other two. His length of rebar he had clutched firmly in his hands as a club, though he perhaps wished it was a sword.
Following behind Jason, Chris and Bianca remained silent, however Chris subtly held out his left hand for Bianca to hold onto. She looked back at him and smiled warmly. Nothing else needed to be said.
Their trek halted when they came to a section of the catwalk that was broken and hanging precariously down over the water. It was a good ten feet to reach the other side, and a pair of 2x6 planks had been laid out side by side to span the gap. They barely long enough to reach, and they did not look like they could bear much weight.
"Man, careful Jace...", Chris whispered.
"I know", said Jason. He crouched down, shining his light over the planks and trying to think of whether he wanted to walk across them or try to just jump the gap. As he was considering his options when a woman's voice rang out from further down the tunnel. It was Evie.
"Jason..? Chris...?", she called out from the darkness. Her voice was shaky and weak.
Bianca called back, "Evie?!"
"Bibi!!", Evie shouted, "Help me, they... I can't see anything..."
Evie slowly stepped out of the shadows and into the light of a nearby bulb. Everyone gasp in horror as they saw her. She was naked, covered in welts and bruises, and most horrifying of all, both of her eyes had been mutilated and burned away into empty charred sockets.
"Evie! Oh my god!", Bianca shouted, covering her mouth with her hands.
Jason called out, "Evie wait right there! There's a gap ahead, I'm coming to get you!" He spared one last look at the planks laid out in front of him and cautiously stepped out onto them, testing one foot at a time to see if they would hold his weight. The planks bowed dangerously low, and Chris had to step on the ends of them to try to keep them level.
"Be careful!", Bianca urged.
The wood creaked with each step that Jason took, and when he got to the midpoint, he took two quick steps to cross the remaining distance and dive onto the catwalk on the other side. He looked back to see the boards straighten back up now that his weight was removed, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
Jason then ran over to Evie and put his arms around her. "Evie, I'm here. I'm here", he said to her.
"Jason...", Evie cried, holding onto him like a lifeline, "What is this place...?"
"It's a sewer... I think...", he said. It didn't smell like a sanitary sewer, but maybe it was the storm sewer. Or knowing this game, it could have been something entirely different.
Evie gasped, "Jason someone hit me when I was walking home, and I woke up in this place. I'm fucking terrified..."
"Don't worry, we're gonna get you out of here", Jason said. He was guiding her back toward the gap as they were talking, and he looked back over at Chris and Bianca to get their help with extracting Evie.
Chris said, "Evie, there's a ladder back the way we came. We're gonna take you above ground. We just gotta get you across this gap first"
"What?! What gap...", Evie replied nervously.
Jason told her, "Just hold onto me, I'll guide you where to step". He stood behind her with his hands on her waist to direct her in line with the wood planks.
Chris then warned, "Wait, Jace, those planks aren't gonna hold both of you"
"They have to...", Jason said.
Evie put her bare foot onto one of the planks, and then shifted her weight to step onto the other plank. The wood began to bend under her and she cried out in fear, flailing her arms as Jason quickly steadied her. "I got you, I got you", he said.
"I can't do it, I'm gonna fall", Evie whined.
"You won't fall, you're doing good", Jason urged. Then he called out ahead, "Chris, get ready to grab her on your end"
"Oh my god, be careful you guys", Bianca said over the steady rush of the water below.
Evie took another tentative step forward, feeling the wood bend even further as she struggled to keep her balance without her sight. Jason kept encouraging her as he reached out from the catwalk to keep her steady. Evie continued taking small steps forward, until she had reached the end of Jason's reach and he had to step onto the boards behind her to keep his hold on her.
The planks creaked loudly. Evie was only three feet across and already the planks looked dangerously bowed. Chris called out to Jason to back off the planks. Evie begged him not to. Jason said to her, "It's okay, I'll hold out this rebar, just walk where it's pointing". He stretched out his arm with the rebar pointed forward and placed it against Evie's palm so that she could feel it.
On the other side of the gap, Chris reached forward with his outstretched arm, waiting for Evie to reach him, but there were still a few more feet to go. "Walk towards my voice, Evie", Chris urged.
Evie tried to reach forward to where she thought Chris was, but still being too far away she felt only air and the sagging of the wood underfoot as her weight shifted. She cried out again and grabbed hold of the rebar Jason was holding. He had no leverage to stop her from falling forward, and it was only by wrapping her arms around the planks that she stayed upon them.
Jason shouted, "No! Okay, okay, stay down and just crawl..." But Evie was too paralyzed with fear to move anywhere.
Just then, they were interrupted by the sounds of guard dogs barking in the distance, in the direction of the shadows from which Evie had come. "Shit! Hurry!", Chris shouted.
"Come on, Evie!", Jason shouted, "We gotta go now!" He rushed onto the planks behind her and tried to pick her up to hustle her forward to where Chris was waiting. Evie reached forward to try to feel the plank ahead of her to find where to go. Jason pushed her along urgently from behind.
Chris looked up to see a pair of rottweilers bounding into the light, only twenty yards behind Jason and closing in fast. "Jason! Behind you!", he warned.
Jason wrenched his rebar free of Evie's grasp and stepped back onto the catwalk behind him, turning around at the same time to face the dogs. He was a half-second too late in turning around, and before he could bring his weapon to bear the lead dog was already lunging at his throat. The dog's jaws clamped down on Jason's left arm instead as he brought it up to defend himself. Jason hollered in pain and staggered backward just as the second dog clamped its jaws down on his right leg.
Under the combined assault, Jason fell over. The dogs immediately moved atop him, snarling and biting at his face and neck and abdomen. In the darkness, Jason's blood and gore looked more black than red as it sprayed into the air with the violent twisting and shaking of the jaws that were tearing into him.
It took only a second or two before the flailing of Jason's body knocked the ends of the planks loose from the catwalk and the entire bridge fell out from underneath Evie. While Jason was being eaten alive on the far side of the gap, Evie fell straight down into the water below. Chris reached out to try to catch her, narrowly grasping her wrist, but leaning so far out that Bianca had to grab him around the waist and desperately pull him back to stop him from falling in too.
For several seconds, Evie dangled helplessly from one arm while her toes skimmed the water's surface. She screamed in terror as she swung side to side through the darkness. Chris hooked his legs into the catwalk railing and strained to try to lift Evie's weight. Bianca tried to pull as well, grasping Chris' arms to lend her strength. The whole time, they had to listen to Jason continuing to thrash horribly under the jaws of the two attack dogs that were eating him alive.
Chris' arms burned, and his fingers started to slip. He clenched his jaw and shouted, trying to summon the strength to get a tighter grip on Evie's hand. Bianca shouted next to him. Slowly, they felt themselves gaining traction, pulling her up an inch at a time.
Then, all of a sudden, there was a loud splash and a lot of thrashing in the darkness below. Evie's weight abruptly diminished, and Chris and Bianca fell backward onto the catwalk, Chris still holding onto Evie's wrist, but it was the girl's arm alone, without the rest of her.
It was too dark down in the water to see exactly what was going on, but the sounds that came up were extremely gruesome. Some swarm of monstrous creatures had set upon Evie and were tearing her limb from limb. The gnashing of jaws and snapping of bones left no doubt about her fate, while the bloody mangled arm that Chris was left with was such a disgusting sight that it made Bianca roll over onto all fours and immediately vomit all over the steel grating.
Chris stared at the severed arm in shock, dropping it on the catwalk and falling onto his back in despair, his chest heaving.
---
It took several minutes for the two of them to collect themselves. The dogs on the other side of the gap had finished their meal and were circling around anxiously, barking and growling at Chris and Bianca. Down below, the feeding frenzy had died down and the soft rush of water took over again. Chris sat with his back to the railing, looking across at Bianca, who was sitting with her back to one of the machines.
"The only way out is through...", Chris finally said.
Bianca stared off at the shadowy concrete wall in the distance. "Chris... we're going to die down here, aren't we?", she murmured.
"No we're not", Chris said firmly, "I won't let that happen"
Bianca continued staring at the wall, saying nothing.
Chris then said, "But... if we do... I love you, Bianca"
Bianca seemed to choke up a little, and then she looked back at him with teary eyes and said, "I love you too, Chris". She crawled over and cuddled against him.
It was then when Chris noticed a narrow gap between two of the machines opposite him, and a hidden passage behind them. He studied it silently while he kept his arm around Bianca to hold her close. He cocked his head, staring at the opening and ignoring all else, tuning out the noise of the water and the dogs barking.
Finally Chris shook Bianca to rouse her, and he whispered to her, "There. A passage". She perked up, and then looked over at where he was pointing. She took her phone out of her purse to put some light on the area. It was just wide enough for both of them to crawl through.
"Are you ready?", Bianca asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Chris nodded slowly. "Let's finish this", he said.
Electric hums and hydraulic thunks came from the line of machines as they chugged away at whatever they were built for. This was clearly some kind of maintenance access tunnel, but the yellow beacon in Chris' eyepiece showed that he was on the right track, and the key had to be somewhere down this catwalk.
"It's all clear", Chris called up to the others above. Jason started climbing down, with Bianca waiting to follow him. But as they were climbing, Chris was alerted to a sudden shifting of the shadows under his feet.
He looked up to see a towering creature emerging from between two of the machines. It stood on two legs like a man, but its profile in silhouette was distinctly inhuman, with a large bulbous head and thin chitinous arms and claws that resembled an insect or crustacean. The creature was upon Chris before he could react, lurching into him and nearly pushing him over the railing of the catwalk.
Chris looked up at the shadow that was bearing down upon him. He felt the force of its spiny arm pushing against his shoulder, and heard the snap of its claws right next to his ear as he weaved his head out of the way. In the dim industrial lighting it was difficult to see more than mere shadow, but as the creature loomed over him, Chris noted the distinctive contours of giant black compound eyes, and a set of slathering mandibles that were encroaching upon his face.
"Chris!", Jason shouted. Still on the ladder, Jason could see his friend grappling with the inhuman monster in the dim subterranean light. He jumped off the ladder and grabbed one of the monster's arms, trying to pry it off of Chris.
It gave Chris just enough space to pull the scalpel from where he'd tucked it into his belt, and he drove the point deep into the monster's neck with as much strength as he could muster. The monster's balance faltered, and Chris pushed it back against the machines behind it, stabbing it continuously in the neck and then the eyes. The monster shrieked horribly under the assault and slumped down onto the catwalk, Chris reversing his grip on the scalpel and continuing to stab it repeatedly from above.
Jason came around to the other side of it and shone his flashlight down on the dying abomination to get a better look at it. At the same time Bianca came down the ladder and cupped her hands over her mouth at the hideous sight. "What the fuck is that?", she gasped.
Chris grunted angrily and finally stood up. "Fuck if I know, but it's dead now", he growled, his chest heaving as he caught his breath.
Jason said, "Now we have to fight real monsters..."
Bianca stared at the dead creature for a long while, and then she abruptly squatted over it and grabbed one of its claw arms. She wiggled it back and forth until the carapace cracked and she felt it pulling loose. She stood up with the detached half of the claw in her hand to see the boys looking at her strangely. "If we're fighting for real, I'm not gonna be the only one without a weapon", she said matter-of-factly, gripping the claw tightly at the base like an improvised knife.
Chris nodded, pulling his scalpel out of the creature's face and holding it firmly in his hand. "Alright, let's go", he said.
---
The catwalk continued for a good distance, with very little variation in scenery. Jason led the way with his gauntlet lit up, since he had the most battery life left compared to the other two. His length of rebar he had clutched firmly in his hands as a club, though he perhaps wished it was a sword.
Following behind Jason, Chris and Bianca remained silent, however Chris subtly held out his left hand for Bianca to hold onto. She looked back at him and smiled warmly. Nothing else needed to be said.
Their trek halted when they came to a section of the catwalk that was broken and hanging precariously down over the water. It was a good ten feet to reach the other side, and a pair of 2x6 planks had been laid out side by side to span the gap. They barely long enough to reach, and they did not look like they could bear much weight.
"Man, careful Jace...", Chris whispered.
"I know", said Jason. He crouched down, shining his light over the planks and trying to think of whether he wanted to walk across them or try to just jump the gap. As he was considering his options when a woman's voice rang out from further down the tunnel. It was Evie.
"Jason..? Chris...?", she called out from the darkness. Her voice was shaky and weak.
Bianca called back, "Evie?!"
"Bibi!!", Evie shouted, "Help me, they... I can't see anything..."
Evie slowly stepped out of the shadows and into the light of a nearby bulb. Everyone gasp in horror as they saw her. She was naked, covered in welts and bruises, and most horrifying of all, both of her eyes had been mutilated and burned away into empty charred sockets.
"Evie! Oh my god!", Bianca shouted, covering her mouth with her hands.
Jason called out, "Evie wait right there! There's a gap ahead, I'm coming to get you!" He spared one last look at the planks laid out in front of him and cautiously stepped out onto them, testing one foot at a time to see if they would hold his weight. The planks bowed dangerously low, and Chris had to step on the ends of them to try to keep them level.
"Be careful!", Bianca urged.
The wood creaked with each step that Jason took, and when he got to the midpoint, he took two quick steps to cross the remaining distance and dive onto the catwalk on the other side. He looked back to see the boards straighten back up now that his weight was removed, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
Jason then ran over to Evie and put his arms around her. "Evie, I'm here. I'm here", he said to her.
"Jason...", Evie cried, holding onto him like a lifeline, "What is this place...?"
"It's a sewer... I think...", he said. It didn't smell like a sanitary sewer, but maybe it was the storm sewer. Or knowing this game, it could have been something entirely different.
Evie gasped, "Jason someone hit me when I was walking home, and I woke up in this place. I'm fucking terrified..."
"Don't worry, we're gonna get you out of here", Jason said. He was guiding her back toward the gap as they were talking, and he looked back over at Chris and Bianca to get their help with extracting Evie.
Chris said, "Evie, there's a ladder back the way we came. We're gonna take you above ground. We just gotta get you across this gap first"
"What?! What gap...", Evie replied nervously.
Jason told her, "Just hold onto me, I'll guide you where to step". He stood behind her with his hands on her waist to direct her in line with the wood planks.
Chris then warned, "Wait, Jace, those planks aren't gonna hold both of you"
"They have to...", Jason said.
Evie put her bare foot onto one of the planks, and then shifted her weight to step onto the other plank. The wood began to bend under her and she cried out in fear, flailing her arms as Jason quickly steadied her. "I got you, I got you", he said.
"I can't do it, I'm gonna fall", Evie whined.
"You won't fall, you're doing good", Jason urged. Then he called out ahead, "Chris, get ready to grab her on your end"
"Oh my god, be careful you guys", Bianca said over the steady rush of the water below.
Evie took another tentative step forward, feeling the wood bend even further as she struggled to keep her balance without her sight. Jason kept encouraging her as he reached out from the catwalk to keep her steady. Evie continued taking small steps forward, until she had reached the end of Jason's reach and he had to step onto the boards behind her to keep his hold on her.
The planks creaked loudly. Evie was only three feet across and already the planks looked dangerously bowed. Chris called out to Jason to back off the planks. Evie begged him not to. Jason said to her, "It's okay, I'll hold out this rebar, just walk where it's pointing". He stretched out his arm with the rebar pointed forward and placed it against Evie's palm so that she could feel it.
On the other side of the gap, Chris reached forward with his outstretched arm, waiting for Evie to reach him, but there were still a few more feet to go. "Walk towards my voice, Evie", Chris urged.
Evie tried to reach forward to where she thought Chris was, but still being too far away she felt only air and the sagging of the wood underfoot as her weight shifted. She cried out again and grabbed hold of the rebar Jason was holding. He had no leverage to stop her from falling forward, and it was only by wrapping her arms around the planks that she stayed upon them.
Jason shouted, "No! Okay, okay, stay down and just crawl..." But Evie was too paralyzed with fear to move anywhere.
Just then, they were interrupted by the sounds of guard dogs barking in the distance, in the direction of the shadows from which Evie had come. "Shit! Hurry!", Chris shouted.
"Come on, Evie!", Jason shouted, "We gotta go now!" He rushed onto the planks behind her and tried to pick her up to hustle her forward to where Chris was waiting. Evie reached forward to try to feel the plank ahead of her to find where to go. Jason pushed her along urgently from behind.
Chris looked up to see a pair of rottweilers bounding into the light, only twenty yards behind Jason and closing in fast. "Jason! Behind you!", he warned.
Jason wrenched his rebar free of Evie's grasp and stepped back onto the catwalk behind him, turning around at the same time to face the dogs. He was a half-second too late in turning around, and before he could bring his weapon to bear the lead dog was already lunging at his throat. The dog's jaws clamped down on Jason's left arm instead as he brought it up to defend himself. Jason hollered in pain and staggered backward just as the second dog clamped its jaws down on his right leg.
Under the combined assault, Jason fell over. The dogs immediately moved atop him, snarling and biting at his face and neck and abdomen. In the darkness, Jason's blood and gore looked more black than red as it sprayed into the air with the violent twisting and shaking of the jaws that were tearing into him.
It took only a second or two before the flailing of Jason's body knocked the ends of the planks loose from the catwalk and the entire bridge fell out from underneath Evie. While Jason was being eaten alive on the far side of the gap, Evie fell straight down into the water below. Chris reached out to try to catch her, narrowly grasping her wrist, but leaning so far out that Bianca had to grab him around the waist and desperately pull him back to stop him from falling in too.
For several seconds, Evie dangled helplessly from one arm while her toes skimmed the water's surface. She screamed in terror as she swung side to side through the darkness. Chris hooked his legs into the catwalk railing and strained to try to lift Evie's weight. Bianca tried to pull as well, grasping Chris' arms to lend her strength. The whole time, they had to listen to Jason continuing to thrash horribly under the jaws of the two attack dogs that were eating him alive.
Chris' arms burned, and his fingers started to slip. He clenched his jaw and shouted, trying to summon the strength to get a tighter grip on Evie's hand. Bianca shouted next to him. Slowly, they felt themselves gaining traction, pulling her up an inch at a time.
Then, all of a sudden, there was a loud splash and a lot of thrashing in the darkness below. Evie's weight abruptly diminished, and Chris and Bianca fell backward onto the catwalk, Chris still holding onto Evie's wrist, but it was the girl's arm alone, without the rest of her.
It was too dark down in the water to see exactly what was going on, but the sounds that came up were extremely gruesome. Some swarm of monstrous creatures had set upon Evie and were tearing her limb from limb. The gnashing of jaws and snapping of bones left no doubt about her fate, while the bloody mangled arm that Chris was left with was such a disgusting sight that it made Bianca roll over onto all fours and immediately vomit all over the steel grating.
Chris stared at the severed arm in shock, dropping it on the catwalk and falling onto his back in despair, his chest heaving.
---
It took several minutes for the two of them to collect themselves. The dogs on the other side of the gap had finished their meal and were circling around anxiously, barking and growling at Chris and Bianca. Down below, the feeding frenzy had died down and the soft rush of water took over again. Chris sat with his back to the railing, looking across at Bianca, who was sitting with her back to one of the machines.
"The only way out is through...", Chris finally said.
Bianca stared off at the shadowy concrete wall in the distance. "Chris... we're going to die down here, aren't we?", she murmured.
"No we're not", Chris said firmly, "I won't let that happen"
Bianca continued staring at the wall, saying nothing.
Chris then said, "But... if we do... I love you, Bianca"
Bianca seemed to choke up a little, and then she looked back at him with teary eyes and said, "I love you too, Chris". She crawled over and cuddled against him.
It was then when Chris noticed a narrow gap between two of the machines opposite him, and a hidden passage behind them. He studied it silently while he kept his arm around Bianca to hold her close. He cocked his head, staring at the opening and ignoring all else, tuning out the noise of the water and the dogs barking.
Finally Chris shook Bianca to rouse her, and he whispered to her, "There. A passage". She perked up, and then looked over at where he was pointing. She took her phone out of her purse to put some light on the area. It was just wide enough for both of them to crawl through.
"Are you ready?", Bianca asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Chris nodded slowly. "Let's finish this", he said.
Crawling under the machines, the two of them arose on the other side to find that the concrete wall had merged with some type of organic structure. The wall here was like a pulsing muscle, with a thin slit allowing entry inside the larger organism. The air rushed past them back and forth, loudly so, as if some great creature was breathing in and out.
"Man...", Chris grumbled as his eyes scanned over the bizarre facade, "...I have nothing to say right now". He was already well beyond being fazed by weird things, and was starting to take everything as Jason had done, like a video game designed by an extremely sick individual.
Chris approached the gap in the fleshy wall and stuck his hand through, grimacing at the slick feeling of the material. He inserted his other hand, and with both of his arms he parted the opening like a curtain. The interior was dark and humid. He took a deep breath, looked to Bianca, and then pushed his way inside. Bianca followed behind him.
The light from Bianca's phone illuminated the interior of the chamber they had entered. The walls were a blend of red and pink, fed by massive blood vessels that snaked all over the structure. The heat and moisture were stifling, making it hard to breathe. Chris moved closer to Bianca to get into the cone of light that her phone cast out. Here and there, small things were darting back and forth underfoot, like rats.
They were not rats, though. Rather, they were slimy and slippery, and the same colour as the fleshy walls around them. They were the same size as rats, but they had the appearance of slugs or leeches as they wormed their way around and between Bianca's ankles. She and Chris stepped awkwardly through the chamber, trying not to touch these vermicious creatures.
It was inevitable that one would start crawling up her leg. Bianca tried to shake it off but it got under her dress before she could reach down to grab it. "Eugh!", she cried out, disgusted, as she wriggled, reaching down into her dress to fish for the offending slug.
The small creature wormed its way swiftly up Bianca's body and emerged out of the neckline of her dress, making for her neck. Chris saw it and reached out quickly to grab it, but as he tried to pull it off her, it bit into her and hung on, pulling at her skin. "Ow! Ow! Ow! Chris stop!", Bianca whined.
The thing was latched on like a leech and threatened to rip her open if it was just yanked off carelessly. More of the slugs began crawling up both Chris' legs and Bianca's legs. "Shit", Chris cursed, and he started plucking the vermin off of himself, tearing bits of the fabric of his pants as he did so. He stomped around erratically, trying to kill the ones that were still on the floor with his shoes.
Bianca became quickly alarmed at the number of slugs that were crawling up over her body and under her dress. She tried to pull at them but with the same results, that they latched onto her skin and did not want to let go. Then she remembered that she had a lighter in her purse. Quickly fishing for it, she flicked it on and held the flame to the slug that was close to her throat. The slug instantly curled up and dropped away, rolling on the floor by her feet.
Soon, Bianca was a flurry of action, bringing the lighter flame all over her body to burn away the creatures that were crawling over her. She pulled up her dress and threw it off so that she could get at the ones who were crawling over her chest and abdomen. One that stuck to her back, she handed the lighter to Chris to burn away.
As fast as they were now dealing with the pests, more of them kept appearing, seeming to emerge out of the darkness into the dim and shaky cone of light created by Bianca's phone and lighter. Chris started searching around, punching at the fleshy walls with his fists until he found another opening. He pulled at it until fresh air came through, and he called out to Bianca to escape.
She dashed past him in a hurry, and Chris then spied the dress she left on the floor of the chamber. He quickly ducked and snatched it up, then he burst shoulder-first through the gap in the wall to escape into the fresh air outside.
Their feet contacted hard cement, and they looked around. It was pitch black here, but Bianca's lights indicated they were in a large cavernous place. Wind rushed past them back and forth in a rhythm, much like the breathing of a great beast. Bianca burned away the remaining slugs on her body and pointed her phone upwards and all around to try to get a read on the environment.
They were in a semi-cylindrical tunnel lined with bare concrete. By how dark it was, it felt as if they had to be deep under the earth or inside a mountain. Sound echoed off the walls, enhancing the ominous breathing noises of the rushing wind. Above, Bianca's light picked up bony ridges in the ceiling, spaced like the ribs of a whale or other massive animal. Scattered all over the floor were bones and organic detritus.
In his eyepiece, Chris could see the yellow beacon of the final key pointing down the tunnel ahead of them. "Are you okay?", he whispered to Bianca. She looked back at him and nodded, as he checked her to make sure there were no more of those things stuck to her. He handed over her dress and she put her lighter back in her purse. But as she was pulling her dress back on, the light on her phone finally died, and it vibrated in her hand to signal that it was shutting off for lack of battery power.
For a moment they were plunged into pitch blackness again, until Chris took out his phone and activated the light. "We better hurry", he whispered, "I'm only at nine percent..."
The two of them hustled down the tunnel, walking swiftly to cover distance without being too careless about the unknown ahead of them. Chris had his scalpel gripped tightly in his right hand while his left hand held his phone out. He swept the cone of his phone's flashlight from side to side and up around the arched ceiling, scanning for trouble. Bianca stayed close at his left side, holding onto the back of his shirt so that they wouldn't get separated in the dark.
After they had been walking for five minutes or so, something changed. When Chris swept his light across the ceiling he caught a glimpse of a set of arachnid legs, as black as the shadows around. Jolting alert, he brought the light back on that same spot, finding initially nothing, but as he searched around, he saw the eight-legged monster crawling silently across the tunnel ceiling and down the wall. It had to be the size of a small car, by how far its legs spanned over the concrete.
Bianca tightened her grip on Chris' shirt and pushed up closer to him as her breath caught. Chris kept his light on the monster as he continued following his feet down the tunnel. "Just keep moving", he whispered to Bianca, hoping the giant spider would remain distant and not bother them.
But as Christ swept his light forward again to see what was ahead, he caught the hind legs of a second spider arching over the floor further ahead and to the right. Then, a third spider was scuttling across the way to his left. "Shit...", he breathed, panning the light back and forth to keep tabs on all of the arachnids spotted so far. They were starting to creep closer.
"Run", Chris abruptly said to Bianca. The two of them took off in a crooked line forward. Chris led the way, weaving between the spiders to avoid getting close to any of them. He kept his light forward so that he would see if there were more of them ahead and could pick a path around them too.
Their shoes slapped loudly on the concrete and their heavy breaths echoed in the cavernous tunnel. Bianca stumbled and fell back, calling out to Chris, who doubled back to stay with her. As he shone his light back in her direction, he saw how close one of the spiders was in pursuit, nearly a step behind Bianca.
Throwing his scalpel aside, Chris reached out and took Bianca's arm, pulling her fervently along. "Come on!", he shouted. She nearly stumbled again but found her footing and raced alongside him into the darkness ahead.
Abruptly, the phone in Chris' hand buzzed and the the light winked out. Only a brief battery icon appeared on the screen before it went entirely black. "Oh no!", Bianca gasped. "Keep running!", Chris urged.
In the oppressive darkness, the breath-like rushing of wind intensified. They were getting closer to the end of the tunnel. Both of them were getting out of breath, and it was only pure abject fear that kept pushing them forward.
Ahead there was a faint light coming from one side, showing that there was a bend in the tunnel. The closer they got, the more light there was, until there was enough of it to make the walls and ceiling visible again. Dropping out of his run, Chris looked back over his shoulder and saw no sign of the spider which had been pursuing them. Even so, he continued to walk quickly with his arm around Bianca, just in case the spider was still there but far enough back in the shadows to not be seen.
The light that was coming from up ahead resolved into a large stone room that was lit by wall-mounted torches spaced all around. It looked like a medieval catacomb, or something from the world of the Diablo franchise. Between the torches, empty suits of armour stood guard, the metal a rich scarlet hue. Unlike any historical armour, these suits included ornate horned helmets, spiked arm and leg plates, and gauntlets with protruding wolverine-like claws, which were clutching short spears with wicked black serrated blades on the end of them.
A great circular stone altar dominated the center of the room, and upon it there was a pentagram lit up with flames, with a single point facing the two arrivals. In the exact center of the pentagram, there was the final key, lying upon the stone slab and pulsing with a faint yellow glow.
"That's it!", Bianca whispered, pointing to the key. She and Chris were about to approach, when they saw movement from inside the room and they quickly ducked down into the shadows to get out of sight.
Wandering in from a side passage there appeared a towering muscular red-skinned figure with massive bat wings, that could only be called a demon in the most stereotypical sense. The creature stood at least seven feet tall, with two curved horns protruding out of its thick forehead. Each arm was as wide across as Chris' head. Each leg was twice that, was covered in dark fur, and ended in a hoof so dense that its footsteps sounded like sledgehammers upon the stone floor.
Each wing, while folded, extended from shoulder to knee. Unfolded, Chris could only imagine how broad the span would be, possibly enough to fill the entire room. The demon's claw-tipped hands were clenched into hard fists that made the dark veins on its arms bulge with pent up wrath.
Chris and Bianca held their breath and hid in the shadows, watching the demon pace slowly across the room. It swept its evil bestial gaze out across the darkness of the tunnel as if it had sensed something was out there. But to the relieve of the two humans, the demon failed to spot them. After many long seconds of suspense, it turned and crossed the room again, returning to the same side passage from whence it came.
Bianca looked at Chris with wide eyes and parted lips. Chris looked back at Bianca with the same expression. Voicelessly, he mouthed the words, "Ho-oly shit..." Bianca glanced back at the darkness behind her, knowing that they couldn't go back that way with the spiders still guarding the tunnel.
"So how do we get past that thing?", she whispered.
Chris shook his head and whispered back, "I was gonna ask you the same thing"
"Okay... okay...", Bianca whispered, trying to breath slowly, "...he comes in and out... we can make sure he's gone and then quickly grab the key"
"It's got flames all around it", Chris pointed out.
Bianca thought about it. "Umm... okay...", she tried again, "Look, those armour suits". She pointed out the four suits of armour that stood with their backs to the walls facing the table from three sides. "They're holding spears. We could grab one and fish the key off the table with it", Bianca suggested.
Chris nodded. "Yeah, and I'd feel a lot safer facing that thing if I had a spear in my hands", he replied. He started to creep a little closer to the torchlit room, but then stopped. Looking back at Bianca, he whispered, "But then what? We can't go back the way we came... or if we do, we need to grab one of those torches"
Bianca nodded. "Good point", she whispered back, "I'll grab a torch, you get a spear. Then we grab the key and run for it"
"Back through the spiders...", Chris breathed. His heart sank at the prospect of facing that trial again.
"Or look...", Bianca said, pointing to the room again, "There are two side passages, but the demon only came out of one of them"
"We have no idea where that goes", Chris objected.
Bianca replied, "It has to go somewhere..."
"I need a closer look", Chris said.
Rising to the balls of his feet but keeping his shoulders hunched, Chris snuck quietly forward, sticking close to the tunnel wall where he would be harder to see. He tried to get a look down each of the two side passages, but they were both shrouded in darkness for lack of any torchlight down either of them.
Slow and heavy hoofbeats announced the demon's return, and Chris scuttled back into the shadows and dropped flat on the ground to hide his profile. The demon returned into the light of the torches, snorting and growling to itself. Once more, its dark inhuman eyes searched out across the tunnel. This time the demon let out a low mooing noise, like a frustrated bull, or perhaps a minotaur, and it turned around and returned to the side passage, disappearing once more within the darkness there.
Chris signaled with his hand to Bianca and mouthed the word, "Go", and he picked himself up off the floor, quickly sneaking into the light of the room and crouching low behind the altar. He could feel the heat of the flames intensely upon his arms and face each time he tried to peek over the altar to watch the passage. Knowing the demon would return soon and he didn't have much time, he went straight for the nearest suit of armour.
Meanwhile, Bianca was quickly sneaking into the room behind him and went for the torch sconce nearby. She reached up and grabbed the torch by its wooden handle and lifted it out of the sconce with a soft scrape that felt all too loud for such a quiet room. Bianca winced at the noise, but carried on, taking the torch in hand and crouching down behind the altar again to wait for Chris.
In his attempts to get a spear, Chris discovered that it was not as simple as he had first thought. The armoured suit had its gauntlet wrapped firmly around the spear haft, forcing Chris to pry the fingers open one by one, all without cutting himself on the razor sharp claws that were protruding from the gauntlet's knuckles.
Chris kept glancing nervously up at the side passage while his hands worked at carefully prying the spear loose. The slow and heavy hoofbeats returned, accompanied by the echo of bovine snorting from that same dark passage. Panicking, Chris yanked the spear the rest of the way and rushed over to the altar. He reached out with the spear like a hockey stick and swept the key from the altar towards Bianca. She tried to catch it only to have it bounce off her forearm and fall to the floor by her feet.
A second later, the entire suit of armour Chris had been tampering with leaned forward slowly and then completely toppled over, clattering loudly across the stone floor as the many interlocking components came apart and went in all directions. The demon emerged at once from the darkness of the passage, its eyes alight with primal rage.
"Go!", Chris shouted to Bianca as he turned his spear on the demon. He felt a surge of adrenaline, his eyes widening to react to anything. His hands gripped the spear haft surely and firmly. He thrust the spear towards the demon, who stepped back out of reach and indignantly swatted one powerful arm to knock the tip aside. The demon let out a terrifying roar.
Bianca hurriedly picked up the key from the ground and stood up to try to escape, but the demon saw her and shifted its attention away from Chris. With a great bounding stride, the demon leapt through air over top of the altar, its wings unfurling to catch the air and extend the distance of its jump. Bianca shrieked and ducked away from the attack, but the demon soon had her firmly by her hair and her upper arm and flung her violently against the wall.
Chris had turned around and now attacked the demon from behind, thrusting his spear deeply into the creature's side. The demon roared again, more in anger than in pain. It quickly grasped the spear haft with the jagged blade still embedded in its flesh. Having a firm hold on Chris' weapon, the demon turned to glare viciously at him from over its shoulder. With a mere flex of its wrist, the demon snapped the spear in half, leaving Chris carrying only a broken length of wood as he stumbled backwards. The demon held onto the wicked blade end and pulled it gruesomely out of its body, causing black blood to pour out all over the stone floor.
His determination now turned to fear, Chris retreated step by step, still brandishing the broken haft in front of him while the demon slowly advanced on him. The demon cocked its head and then hurled the serrated blade through the air at Chris. He instinctively ducked behind the broken haft in his hands as the blade impacted violently, cleaving halfway through the haft and knocking it from Chris' hands. Chris stumbled back and tripped over one of the loose pieces of armour on the floor behind him, and he fell painfully on his ass.
The demon seemed to be satisfied with its dominance over Chris, and turned its attention back to Bianca, who was staggering in a daze after hitting her head against the wall. She had dropped both the key and the torch from the impact, and she was struggling to get her senses back.
Not giving her any time to think, the demon reached out and grabbed her again, this time by the throat with one massive hand. Its sharp obsidian claws dug shallowly into the skin of her neck while its other hand grasped her dress and tore the fabric from her body. "Ah! What are you...", Bianca stammered, before she was abruptly flung around and pushed into the stone altar.
The demon shoved Bianca from behind and forced her to bend over the stone altar, so that her head was between two lines of scorching fire; close enough to be painful, but without directly burning her. A rush of cold air then came up her backside as she felt the demon rip her underwear off her body, leaving her bent stark naked on the cold stone slab.
Bianca looked back over her shoulder and gasped as the demon now had a terrifyingly large erect penis emerging from the forest of dark fur around its groin. It was red and pulsing, uncircumcised and glistening with fluid. The demon held the base of his cock with one hand, and with the other hand he reached down to grab Bianca's thigh and prepare her to receive.
In a panic, Bianca kicked and thrashed, rolling onto her back and doing everything to keep the monster from getting any closer. The demon grasped her by both ankles and pinned her against the stone, forcing her legs apart and advancing on her. The inhuman look in its solid black eyes made a shiver of fear run through Bianca's body, and she turned her head away from the creature, shutting her eyes and whimpering softly.
By this time, Chris had gotten back to his feet again and yanked another spear from the wall, this time unconcerned with causing the suit of armour to come crashing down behind him. The gauntlet was still attached, but he quickly pulled that loose and threw it at the demon.
The demon flinched and raised its arm to defend its head, but the sharp claw-blades on the gauntlet sliced a nasty gash through the demon's forearm. Furthermore, using the distraction, Chris lunged forward and pierced the demon's chest with the spear's wicked blade.
Dark blood poured out all over the altar, snuffing some of the flames and painting Bianca's skin with broad black smears. The demon roared and grasped at the spear again, but this time Chris pulled it back in time and struck again. The second thrust glanced off the demon's ribs as it twisted its torso to evade the strike. The demon countered with a flap of its extended wing, beating Chris across the head and sending him stumbling into the altar.
This time the demon was determined to finish the boy off permanently, but before it could take its first step toward Chris, Bianca lashed out with her leg and delivered a vicious kick to its exposed phallus. It was the sort of kick she had honed for many years playing little league soccer in her childhood. Were it a human, she might have crippled him permanently, but the demon was barely even fazed.
Still, it was enough of a distraction for Chris to get back up and stab at the demon once more. The demon put up its wing in defence as it turned away from the attack. Meanwhile Bianca ducked away from the monster and grabbed the key and the torch from the floor where she had dropped them, along with her purse which had fallen nearby. "I got it! Let's go!", she called to Chris, and she started running toward the side passage.
The demon turned at once and raced to intercept her, but Chris kept up the attack, shouting a war cry as he stabbed at the creature again and again, drawing great amounts of black blood which splashed all over the walls and floor. "Bianca, get out of here!", he shouted, doing his best to keep the monster busy so that she could escape.
Bianca could see a light coming from the far end of the passage, but then she turned back around. "No! Chris!", she called back to him. Her mind raced, and then she found the clawed gauntlet on the floor next to her that Chris had thrown previously. She dropped what she was carrying and picked up the gauntlet, jamming her hand into it, and with a savage cry she swung her fist into the demon, shredding its face and one of its eyes.
Between the two of them they pushed the demon backward until it turned and retreated into the dark tunnel. Chris almost felt like chasing after it, his blood pumping with the euphoria of victory, but Bianca grabbed his wrist and held him back. Chris looked back at his girlfriend, covered in blood and sweat, with some of her hair singed away, and he saw the urgency in her eyes.
Without a word, he nodded to her and followed her to the side passage. He stooped and picked up the key from the floor on his way out, while she collected her purse and the torch, and they both ran, just as the demon returned from the shadows, its wounds quickly healing, and stomped into the torchlit chamber with a wall-shaking roar.
"Man...", Chris grumbled as his eyes scanned over the bizarre facade, "...I have nothing to say right now". He was already well beyond being fazed by weird things, and was starting to take everything as Jason had done, like a video game designed by an extremely sick individual.
Chris approached the gap in the fleshy wall and stuck his hand through, grimacing at the slick feeling of the material. He inserted his other hand, and with both of his arms he parted the opening like a curtain. The interior was dark and humid. He took a deep breath, looked to Bianca, and then pushed his way inside. Bianca followed behind him.
The light from Bianca's phone illuminated the interior of the chamber they had entered. The walls were a blend of red and pink, fed by massive blood vessels that snaked all over the structure. The heat and moisture were stifling, making it hard to breathe. Chris moved closer to Bianca to get into the cone of light that her phone cast out. Here and there, small things were darting back and forth underfoot, like rats.
They were not rats, though. Rather, they were slimy and slippery, and the same colour as the fleshy walls around them. They were the same size as rats, but they had the appearance of slugs or leeches as they wormed their way around and between Bianca's ankles. She and Chris stepped awkwardly through the chamber, trying not to touch these vermicious creatures.
It was inevitable that one would start crawling up her leg. Bianca tried to shake it off but it got under her dress before she could reach down to grab it. "Eugh!", she cried out, disgusted, as she wriggled, reaching down into her dress to fish for the offending slug.
The small creature wormed its way swiftly up Bianca's body and emerged out of the neckline of her dress, making for her neck. Chris saw it and reached out quickly to grab it, but as he tried to pull it off her, it bit into her and hung on, pulling at her skin. "Ow! Ow! Ow! Chris stop!", Bianca whined.
The thing was latched on like a leech and threatened to rip her open if it was just yanked off carelessly. More of the slugs began crawling up both Chris' legs and Bianca's legs. "Shit", Chris cursed, and he started plucking the vermin off of himself, tearing bits of the fabric of his pants as he did so. He stomped around erratically, trying to kill the ones that were still on the floor with his shoes.
Bianca became quickly alarmed at the number of slugs that were crawling up over her body and under her dress. She tried to pull at them but with the same results, that they latched onto her skin and did not want to let go. Then she remembered that she had a lighter in her purse. Quickly fishing for it, she flicked it on and held the flame to the slug that was close to her throat. The slug instantly curled up and dropped away, rolling on the floor by her feet.
Soon, Bianca was a flurry of action, bringing the lighter flame all over her body to burn away the creatures that were crawling over her. She pulled up her dress and threw it off so that she could get at the ones who were crawling over her chest and abdomen. One that stuck to her back, she handed the lighter to Chris to burn away.
As fast as they were now dealing with the pests, more of them kept appearing, seeming to emerge out of the darkness into the dim and shaky cone of light created by Bianca's phone and lighter. Chris started searching around, punching at the fleshy walls with his fists until he found another opening. He pulled at it until fresh air came through, and he called out to Bianca to escape.
She dashed past him in a hurry, and Chris then spied the dress she left on the floor of the chamber. He quickly ducked and snatched it up, then he burst shoulder-first through the gap in the wall to escape into the fresh air outside.
Their feet contacted hard cement, and they looked around. It was pitch black here, but Bianca's lights indicated they were in a large cavernous place. Wind rushed past them back and forth in a rhythm, much like the breathing of a great beast. Bianca burned away the remaining slugs on her body and pointed her phone upwards and all around to try to get a read on the environment.
They were in a semi-cylindrical tunnel lined with bare concrete. By how dark it was, it felt as if they had to be deep under the earth or inside a mountain. Sound echoed off the walls, enhancing the ominous breathing noises of the rushing wind. Above, Bianca's light picked up bony ridges in the ceiling, spaced like the ribs of a whale or other massive animal. Scattered all over the floor were bones and organic detritus.
In his eyepiece, Chris could see the yellow beacon of the final key pointing down the tunnel ahead of them. "Are you okay?", he whispered to Bianca. She looked back at him and nodded, as he checked her to make sure there were no more of those things stuck to her. He handed over her dress and she put her lighter back in her purse. But as she was pulling her dress back on, the light on her phone finally died, and it vibrated in her hand to signal that it was shutting off for lack of battery power.
For a moment they were plunged into pitch blackness again, until Chris took out his phone and activated the light. "We better hurry", he whispered, "I'm only at nine percent..."
The two of them hustled down the tunnel, walking swiftly to cover distance without being too careless about the unknown ahead of them. Chris had his scalpel gripped tightly in his right hand while his left hand held his phone out. He swept the cone of his phone's flashlight from side to side and up around the arched ceiling, scanning for trouble. Bianca stayed close at his left side, holding onto the back of his shirt so that they wouldn't get separated in the dark.
After they had been walking for five minutes or so, something changed. When Chris swept his light across the ceiling he caught a glimpse of a set of arachnid legs, as black as the shadows around. Jolting alert, he brought the light back on that same spot, finding initially nothing, but as he searched around, he saw the eight-legged monster crawling silently across the tunnel ceiling and down the wall. It had to be the size of a small car, by how far its legs spanned over the concrete.
Bianca tightened her grip on Chris' shirt and pushed up closer to him as her breath caught. Chris kept his light on the monster as he continued following his feet down the tunnel. "Just keep moving", he whispered to Bianca, hoping the giant spider would remain distant and not bother them.
But as Christ swept his light forward again to see what was ahead, he caught the hind legs of a second spider arching over the floor further ahead and to the right. Then, a third spider was scuttling across the way to his left. "Shit...", he breathed, panning the light back and forth to keep tabs on all of the arachnids spotted so far. They were starting to creep closer.
"Run", Chris abruptly said to Bianca. The two of them took off in a crooked line forward. Chris led the way, weaving between the spiders to avoid getting close to any of them. He kept his light forward so that he would see if there were more of them ahead and could pick a path around them too.
Their shoes slapped loudly on the concrete and their heavy breaths echoed in the cavernous tunnel. Bianca stumbled and fell back, calling out to Chris, who doubled back to stay with her. As he shone his light back in her direction, he saw how close one of the spiders was in pursuit, nearly a step behind Bianca.
Throwing his scalpel aside, Chris reached out and took Bianca's arm, pulling her fervently along. "Come on!", he shouted. She nearly stumbled again but found her footing and raced alongside him into the darkness ahead.
Abruptly, the phone in Chris' hand buzzed and the the light winked out. Only a brief battery icon appeared on the screen before it went entirely black. "Oh no!", Bianca gasped. "Keep running!", Chris urged.
In the oppressive darkness, the breath-like rushing of wind intensified. They were getting closer to the end of the tunnel. Both of them were getting out of breath, and it was only pure abject fear that kept pushing them forward.
Ahead there was a faint light coming from one side, showing that there was a bend in the tunnel. The closer they got, the more light there was, until there was enough of it to make the walls and ceiling visible again. Dropping out of his run, Chris looked back over his shoulder and saw no sign of the spider which had been pursuing them. Even so, he continued to walk quickly with his arm around Bianca, just in case the spider was still there but far enough back in the shadows to not be seen.
The light that was coming from up ahead resolved into a large stone room that was lit by wall-mounted torches spaced all around. It looked like a medieval catacomb, or something from the world of the Diablo franchise. Between the torches, empty suits of armour stood guard, the metal a rich scarlet hue. Unlike any historical armour, these suits included ornate horned helmets, spiked arm and leg plates, and gauntlets with protruding wolverine-like claws, which were clutching short spears with wicked black serrated blades on the end of them.
A great circular stone altar dominated the center of the room, and upon it there was a pentagram lit up with flames, with a single point facing the two arrivals. In the exact center of the pentagram, there was the final key, lying upon the stone slab and pulsing with a faint yellow glow.
"That's it!", Bianca whispered, pointing to the key. She and Chris were about to approach, when they saw movement from inside the room and they quickly ducked down into the shadows to get out of sight.
Wandering in from a side passage there appeared a towering muscular red-skinned figure with massive bat wings, that could only be called a demon in the most stereotypical sense. The creature stood at least seven feet tall, with two curved horns protruding out of its thick forehead. Each arm was as wide across as Chris' head. Each leg was twice that, was covered in dark fur, and ended in a hoof so dense that its footsteps sounded like sledgehammers upon the stone floor.
Each wing, while folded, extended from shoulder to knee. Unfolded, Chris could only imagine how broad the span would be, possibly enough to fill the entire room. The demon's claw-tipped hands were clenched into hard fists that made the dark veins on its arms bulge with pent up wrath.
Chris and Bianca held their breath and hid in the shadows, watching the demon pace slowly across the room. It swept its evil bestial gaze out across the darkness of the tunnel as if it had sensed something was out there. But to the relieve of the two humans, the demon failed to spot them. After many long seconds of suspense, it turned and crossed the room again, returning to the same side passage from whence it came.
Bianca looked at Chris with wide eyes and parted lips. Chris looked back at Bianca with the same expression. Voicelessly, he mouthed the words, "Ho-oly shit..." Bianca glanced back at the darkness behind her, knowing that they couldn't go back that way with the spiders still guarding the tunnel.
"So how do we get past that thing?", she whispered.
Chris shook his head and whispered back, "I was gonna ask you the same thing"
"Okay... okay...", Bianca whispered, trying to breath slowly, "...he comes in and out... we can make sure he's gone and then quickly grab the key"
"It's got flames all around it", Chris pointed out.
Bianca thought about it. "Umm... okay...", she tried again, "Look, those armour suits". She pointed out the four suits of armour that stood with their backs to the walls facing the table from three sides. "They're holding spears. We could grab one and fish the key off the table with it", Bianca suggested.
Chris nodded. "Yeah, and I'd feel a lot safer facing that thing if I had a spear in my hands", he replied. He started to creep a little closer to the torchlit room, but then stopped. Looking back at Bianca, he whispered, "But then what? We can't go back the way we came... or if we do, we need to grab one of those torches"
Bianca nodded. "Good point", she whispered back, "I'll grab a torch, you get a spear. Then we grab the key and run for it"
"Back through the spiders...", Chris breathed. His heart sank at the prospect of facing that trial again.
"Or look...", Bianca said, pointing to the room again, "There are two side passages, but the demon only came out of one of them"
"We have no idea where that goes", Chris objected.
Bianca replied, "It has to go somewhere..."
"I need a closer look", Chris said.
Rising to the balls of his feet but keeping his shoulders hunched, Chris snuck quietly forward, sticking close to the tunnel wall where he would be harder to see. He tried to get a look down each of the two side passages, but they were both shrouded in darkness for lack of any torchlight down either of them.
Slow and heavy hoofbeats announced the demon's return, and Chris scuttled back into the shadows and dropped flat on the ground to hide his profile. The demon returned into the light of the torches, snorting and growling to itself. Once more, its dark inhuman eyes searched out across the tunnel. This time the demon let out a low mooing noise, like a frustrated bull, or perhaps a minotaur, and it turned around and returned to the side passage, disappearing once more within the darkness there.
Chris signaled with his hand to Bianca and mouthed the word, "Go", and he picked himself up off the floor, quickly sneaking into the light of the room and crouching low behind the altar. He could feel the heat of the flames intensely upon his arms and face each time he tried to peek over the altar to watch the passage. Knowing the demon would return soon and he didn't have much time, he went straight for the nearest suit of armour.
Meanwhile, Bianca was quickly sneaking into the room behind him and went for the torch sconce nearby. She reached up and grabbed the torch by its wooden handle and lifted it out of the sconce with a soft scrape that felt all too loud for such a quiet room. Bianca winced at the noise, but carried on, taking the torch in hand and crouching down behind the altar again to wait for Chris.
In his attempts to get a spear, Chris discovered that it was not as simple as he had first thought. The armoured suit had its gauntlet wrapped firmly around the spear haft, forcing Chris to pry the fingers open one by one, all without cutting himself on the razor sharp claws that were protruding from the gauntlet's knuckles.
Chris kept glancing nervously up at the side passage while his hands worked at carefully prying the spear loose. The slow and heavy hoofbeats returned, accompanied by the echo of bovine snorting from that same dark passage. Panicking, Chris yanked the spear the rest of the way and rushed over to the altar. He reached out with the spear like a hockey stick and swept the key from the altar towards Bianca. She tried to catch it only to have it bounce off her forearm and fall to the floor by her feet.
A second later, the entire suit of armour Chris had been tampering with leaned forward slowly and then completely toppled over, clattering loudly across the stone floor as the many interlocking components came apart and went in all directions. The demon emerged at once from the darkness of the passage, its eyes alight with primal rage.
"Go!", Chris shouted to Bianca as he turned his spear on the demon. He felt a surge of adrenaline, his eyes widening to react to anything. His hands gripped the spear haft surely and firmly. He thrust the spear towards the demon, who stepped back out of reach and indignantly swatted one powerful arm to knock the tip aside. The demon let out a terrifying roar.
Bianca hurriedly picked up the key from the ground and stood up to try to escape, but the demon saw her and shifted its attention away from Chris. With a great bounding stride, the demon leapt through air over top of the altar, its wings unfurling to catch the air and extend the distance of its jump. Bianca shrieked and ducked away from the attack, but the demon soon had her firmly by her hair and her upper arm and flung her violently against the wall.
Chris had turned around and now attacked the demon from behind, thrusting his spear deeply into the creature's side. The demon roared again, more in anger than in pain. It quickly grasped the spear haft with the jagged blade still embedded in its flesh. Having a firm hold on Chris' weapon, the demon turned to glare viciously at him from over its shoulder. With a mere flex of its wrist, the demon snapped the spear in half, leaving Chris carrying only a broken length of wood as he stumbled backwards. The demon held onto the wicked blade end and pulled it gruesomely out of its body, causing black blood to pour out all over the stone floor.
His determination now turned to fear, Chris retreated step by step, still brandishing the broken haft in front of him while the demon slowly advanced on him. The demon cocked its head and then hurled the serrated blade through the air at Chris. He instinctively ducked behind the broken haft in his hands as the blade impacted violently, cleaving halfway through the haft and knocking it from Chris' hands. Chris stumbled back and tripped over one of the loose pieces of armour on the floor behind him, and he fell painfully on his ass.
The demon seemed to be satisfied with its dominance over Chris, and turned its attention back to Bianca, who was staggering in a daze after hitting her head against the wall. She had dropped both the key and the torch from the impact, and she was struggling to get her senses back.
Not giving her any time to think, the demon reached out and grabbed her again, this time by the throat with one massive hand. Its sharp obsidian claws dug shallowly into the skin of her neck while its other hand grasped her dress and tore the fabric from her body. "Ah! What are you...", Bianca stammered, before she was abruptly flung around and pushed into the stone altar.
The demon shoved Bianca from behind and forced her to bend over the stone altar, so that her head was between two lines of scorching fire; close enough to be painful, but without directly burning her. A rush of cold air then came up her backside as she felt the demon rip her underwear off her body, leaving her bent stark naked on the cold stone slab.
Bianca looked back over her shoulder and gasped as the demon now had a terrifyingly large erect penis emerging from the forest of dark fur around its groin. It was red and pulsing, uncircumcised and glistening with fluid. The demon held the base of his cock with one hand, and with the other hand he reached down to grab Bianca's thigh and prepare her to receive.
In a panic, Bianca kicked and thrashed, rolling onto her back and doing everything to keep the monster from getting any closer. The demon grasped her by both ankles and pinned her against the stone, forcing her legs apart and advancing on her. The inhuman look in its solid black eyes made a shiver of fear run through Bianca's body, and she turned her head away from the creature, shutting her eyes and whimpering softly.
By this time, Chris had gotten back to his feet again and yanked another spear from the wall, this time unconcerned with causing the suit of armour to come crashing down behind him. The gauntlet was still attached, but he quickly pulled that loose and threw it at the demon.
The demon flinched and raised its arm to defend its head, but the sharp claw-blades on the gauntlet sliced a nasty gash through the demon's forearm. Furthermore, using the distraction, Chris lunged forward and pierced the demon's chest with the spear's wicked blade.
Dark blood poured out all over the altar, snuffing some of the flames and painting Bianca's skin with broad black smears. The demon roared and grasped at the spear again, but this time Chris pulled it back in time and struck again. The second thrust glanced off the demon's ribs as it twisted its torso to evade the strike. The demon countered with a flap of its extended wing, beating Chris across the head and sending him stumbling into the altar.
This time the demon was determined to finish the boy off permanently, but before it could take its first step toward Chris, Bianca lashed out with her leg and delivered a vicious kick to its exposed phallus. It was the sort of kick she had honed for many years playing little league soccer in her childhood. Were it a human, she might have crippled him permanently, but the demon was barely even fazed.
Still, it was enough of a distraction for Chris to get back up and stab at the demon once more. The demon put up its wing in defence as it turned away from the attack. Meanwhile Bianca ducked away from the monster and grabbed the key and the torch from the floor where she had dropped them, along with her purse which had fallen nearby. "I got it! Let's go!", she called to Chris, and she started running toward the side passage.
The demon turned at once and raced to intercept her, but Chris kept up the attack, shouting a war cry as he stabbed at the creature again and again, drawing great amounts of black blood which splashed all over the walls and floor. "Bianca, get out of here!", he shouted, doing his best to keep the monster busy so that she could escape.
Bianca could see a light coming from the far end of the passage, but then she turned back around. "No! Chris!", she called back to him. Her mind raced, and then she found the clawed gauntlet on the floor next to her that Chris had thrown previously. She dropped what she was carrying and picked up the gauntlet, jamming her hand into it, and with a savage cry she swung her fist into the demon, shredding its face and one of its eyes.
Between the two of them they pushed the demon backward until it turned and retreated into the dark tunnel. Chris almost felt like chasing after it, his blood pumping with the euphoria of victory, but Bianca grabbed his wrist and held him back. Chris looked back at his girlfriend, covered in blood and sweat, with some of her hair singed away, and he saw the urgency in her eyes.
Without a word, he nodded to her and followed her to the side passage. He stooped and picked up the key from the floor on his way out, while she collected her purse and the torch, and they both ran, just as the demon returned from the shadows, its wounds quickly healing, and stomped into the torchlit chamber with a wall-shaking roar.
The light at the end of the passage was a ladder leading up to street level. Lights from the city were filtering down into the passage through a steel grate built flush with the sidewalk. Chris and Bianca hastily climbed the ladder one after the other. Reaching the top, Bianca pushed against the grate and was relieved to feel it budge and then separate from the sidewalk.
She felt awkward crawling out onto the street as naked as she was, but there was fortunately no one around to see her. Without their phones they couldn't know exactly what time it was, but a faint bit of twilight in the east told them more time had passed underground than they had realized.
Chris climbed out of the tunnel and saw the sky as well. "Shit, we need to hurry", he said. They had several miles to cover to get back to the rental house, and anyone's guess how little time left to do it.
Together, they ran quickly across the city. The streets were mostly deserted, but a couple of dark figures in the distance noticed Bianca's nudity and whooped at her. College girls streaking in the middle of the night on Halloween was not unheard of. Chris kept his spear close. He hoped they wouldn't run into any rough characters in this part of the city at night, but if they did, he was ready to just run them through and keep on going.
The distance was taxing, and they had to stop every half mile or so to catch their breath before picking up the run again. Bianca was accustomed to jogging over distance, but not in platform boots and with her bare tits flopping around. Chris did not have such stamina as she did, but his stride was longer, and he could recover his breath more quickly when they slowed down to walk.
Each time that Chris felt his lungs were about to explode, he dropped to a walking pace, but soon he looked up at the eastern sky again, and saw how much lighter it had become, and he forced himself back into a run.
"Almost there...", Bianca gasped between heavy breaths as they came onto residential streets that she recognized. The neighbourhood appeared deserted, except for occasional bonfires in the middle of the street where it looked like people had been skewered on stakes. Other corpses hung from tree branches on the neighbouring properties. In the distance, there were inhuman shrieks and yelps from some demonic creatures too far off to be seen.
The rental house soon came into view at the end of the street. Panting with exhaustion, Chris and Bianca carried themselves towards it. Bianca's car was still parked in the driveway, and the front door was still hanging open where they had left it. Wary that Naima's killer was still around, Chris put an arm out to slow Bianca down, and he proceeded cautiously with his spear ready.
They walked slowly up the driveway, looking all around and ready for anything to jump out of the shadows. Nothing moved, and Chris then stepped up onto the porch and looked inside. The sealed portal was still pulsing and glowing in the center of the living room, attracting all attention. Chains still hung from the ceiling with Naima's body parts hanging from them, but now more chains had been added to showcase Kurt's head and limbs too.
Bianca walked up close behind Chris, holding tightly onto the claw she had taken from the sewer monster, which she had now extracted from her purse. Chris then advanced through the front door. In a quick motion he burst into the living room, brandishing his spear, and looking for any sign of the killer hiding somewhere. Nothing moved, except for the gently swinging chains all around.
"Okay, let's hurry", Chris said in a quiet voice, and he rushed over to the portal, pulling out the keys that he had collected.
He held up the yellow key from the underground, and it glowed with yellow light, then flew into the portal, causing one of the heavy locks to fall away.
He then held up the red key from the basement party, and this one glowed with red light and then flew into the portal. Another lock fell away.
He then held up the magenta key from the graveyard. The key glowed with a magental light and flew into the portal, causing a third lock to fall away.
There was one lock left, but as Chris felt his pockets, he did not have any other keys. "Where's the other key?", he turned and asked Bianca.
Bianca asked, "Which key?"
"The blue one", Chris said, "From the bridge.... ohhh fuck!" It dawned on him in that moment that Jason was the one who had been carrying the blue key. The key had to be still with his body down in the sewers. "Jason had it...", Chris said, his face overcome with despair.
Bianca's lips opened wide in stunned silence as dawn's first light shone in through the window.
The voice of the game master spoke up from behind them. "It is dawn", he announced grimly, "Your time is up". Spinning around, Bianca and Chris saw a shadowy figure approaching from the house entrance. Though he walked into the light of the portal, he remained completely in silhouette as if backlit rather than frontlit. Initially the size of a man, with each step the figure became taller and broader, until bat-like wings began to spread out from behind his shoulders.
"No no no...", Chris said, and he clutched his spear, stepping forward to fight the shadow-demon. But before he could take a second step, there was a flash from the portal, and a barbed iron spike shot forth on a heavy chain. The spike struck Chris in the back and burst through his heart, killing him instantly and coming out the front of his chest while Bianca screamed in terror. The barbs dug into his flesh and pulled his body swiftly into the portal to be consumed by the fires of Hell.
"Noohh....", Bianca whined. She watched helplessly as the winged shadow approached her. She held up the claw in her hand, but her fingers trembled and it fell to the floor. The figure spread its wings wide and lunged forward, engulfing her in total darkness.
She felt awkward crawling out onto the street as naked as she was, but there was fortunately no one around to see her. Without their phones they couldn't know exactly what time it was, but a faint bit of twilight in the east told them more time had passed underground than they had realized.
Chris climbed out of the tunnel and saw the sky as well. "Shit, we need to hurry", he said. They had several miles to cover to get back to the rental house, and anyone's guess how little time left to do it.
Together, they ran quickly across the city. The streets were mostly deserted, but a couple of dark figures in the distance noticed Bianca's nudity and whooped at her. College girls streaking in the middle of the night on Halloween was not unheard of. Chris kept his spear close. He hoped they wouldn't run into any rough characters in this part of the city at night, but if they did, he was ready to just run them through and keep on going.
The distance was taxing, and they had to stop every half mile or so to catch their breath before picking up the run again. Bianca was accustomed to jogging over distance, but not in platform boots and with her bare tits flopping around. Chris did not have such stamina as she did, but his stride was longer, and he could recover his breath more quickly when they slowed down to walk.
Each time that Chris felt his lungs were about to explode, he dropped to a walking pace, but soon he looked up at the eastern sky again, and saw how much lighter it had become, and he forced himself back into a run.
"Almost there...", Bianca gasped between heavy breaths as they came onto residential streets that she recognized. The neighbourhood appeared deserted, except for occasional bonfires in the middle of the street where it looked like people had been skewered on stakes. Other corpses hung from tree branches on the neighbouring properties. In the distance, there were inhuman shrieks and yelps from some demonic creatures too far off to be seen.
The rental house soon came into view at the end of the street. Panting with exhaustion, Chris and Bianca carried themselves towards it. Bianca's car was still parked in the driveway, and the front door was still hanging open where they had left it. Wary that Naima's killer was still around, Chris put an arm out to slow Bianca down, and he proceeded cautiously with his spear ready.
They walked slowly up the driveway, looking all around and ready for anything to jump out of the shadows. Nothing moved, and Chris then stepped up onto the porch and looked inside. The sealed portal was still pulsing and glowing in the center of the living room, attracting all attention. Chains still hung from the ceiling with Naima's body parts hanging from them, but now more chains had been added to showcase Kurt's head and limbs too.
Bianca walked up close behind Chris, holding tightly onto the claw she had taken from the sewer monster, which she had now extracted from her purse. Chris then advanced through the front door. In a quick motion he burst into the living room, brandishing his spear, and looking for any sign of the killer hiding somewhere. Nothing moved, except for the gently swinging chains all around.
"Okay, let's hurry", Chris said in a quiet voice, and he rushed over to the portal, pulling out the keys that he had collected.
He held up the yellow key from the underground, and it glowed with yellow light, then flew into the portal, causing one of the heavy locks to fall away.
He then held up the red key from the basement party, and this one glowed with red light and then flew into the portal. Another lock fell away.
He then held up the magenta key from the graveyard. The key glowed with a magental light and flew into the portal, causing a third lock to fall away.
There was one lock left, but as Chris felt his pockets, he did not have any other keys. "Where's the other key?", he turned and asked Bianca.
Bianca asked, "Which key?"
"The blue one", Chris said, "From the bridge.... ohhh fuck!" It dawned on him in that moment that Jason was the one who had been carrying the blue key. The key had to be still with his body down in the sewers. "Jason had it...", Chris said, his face overcome with despair.
Bianca's lips opened wide in stunned silence as dawn's first light shone in through the window.
The voice of the game master spoke up from behind them. "It is dawn", he announced grimly, "Your time is up". Spinning around, Bianca and Chris saw a shadowy figure approaching from the house entrance. Though he walked into the light of the portal, he remained completely in silhouette as if backlit rather than frontlit. Initially the size of a man, with each step the figure became taller and broader, until bat-like wings began to spread out from behind his shoulders.
"No no no...", Chris said, and he clutched his spear, stepping forward to fight the shadow-demon. But before he could take a second step, there was a flash from the portal, and a barbed iron spike shot forth on a heavy chain. The spike struck Chris in the back and burst through his heart, killing him instantly and coming out the front of his chest while Bianca screamed in terror. The barbs dug into his flesh and pulled his body swiftly into the portal to be consumed by the fires of Hell.
"Noohh....", Bianca whined. She watched helplessly as the winged shadow approached her. She held up the claw in her hand, but her fingers trembled and it fell to the floor. The figure spread its wings wide and lunged forward, engulfing her in total darkness.
I woke up one morning and the leaves were black. The sky was blood red, and my hands were ashen grey. The world around me carried on, but it was no longer my world. It was the world of the living. On a single night each year, I went into that world and hunted them. I feasted on their flesh and blood to sustain myself for the year to come.
Now I have a new form of sustenance. She resisted at first. She despised me with all of her being. But in the end she came to understand her role. I don't need to hunt anymore, at least not for now. She gives me everything I need, and offers it willingly. I have at long last found what I was searching for. I have found my Final Girl.
Now I have a new form of sustenance. She resisted at first. She despised me with all of her being. But in the end she came to understand her role. I don't need to hunt anymore, at least not for now. She gives me everything I need, and offers it willingly. I have at long last found what I was searching for. I have found my Final Girl.