by Tufo, Mark
“Let’s go.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. I was moving as quickly to the door as I dared. Going down was not much better than going up had been. I did not want to put any undue weight on my leg and I didn’t dare use the guardrail to support my full weight and let gravity do its job. The rail looked solid enough but there was a possibility it could be rusted out and I could end up going down hard. Besides bruising my ego and my ass (were those the same?) the extra noise could alert any intruders to our whereabouts. We were both unnaturally quiet as we descended, as every miscellaneous miniscule noise we had earlier discounted now took on more ominous tones.
We would be in some real trouble if we were found out. We were about as vulnerable as we could be. Even a juvenile Lycan wouldn’t have too much problem dispatching of us both. Mathieu had no weapons on him and I was on one leg. Maybe I could hop the Lycan to death. The door that opened up to the hallway creaked. When we went up it was barely noticeable but since all of our senses were heightened now it sounded like the migratory mating call of a blue whale and it would be heard for miles.
“Smell anything?” I asked as we stepped out into the corridor. I hoped for more than one reason that he didn’t. My leg was beginning to throb, and if I had to go back up the stairs with some semblance of speed, I was going to be in a great deal of pain.
“No,” was his answer, after what seemed like an inordinate delay, although I didn’t mind him being overly cautious since it was our lives at stake. “I need to get to my room, I have a bow and arrow.”
“I need to get my axe as well.”
“Should we separate?”
I stopped to look at him. “I guess you wouldn’t know.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Horror Movie 101. The protagonists should never, ever split up.”
“Movie? One-oh-one? Is that English?”
“Let’s just get your bow, and then we’ll get my weapon.”
“It’d be quicker if we each got them and met back here.”
“Yup, most definitely would, now let’s go. I’m telling you, if we split up, one of us will die real soon and then the other will be left to run around all by himself for a long time with death right on his heels. Then, just when it looks like he’s going to get away, he gets killed. After that, the ending credits roll up and the audience is left with a bad taste in their mouths. It’s a format that has worked for years.”
“Whatever you say.” We took a right and headed for his place.
We didn’t see, hear or, in Mathieu’s case, smell anything. That, however, did little to quell the unease we were both feeling. Something just wasn’t right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the normally benign silo now felt sinister. I was sort of surprised I couldn’t hear the portentous background music. It was a given something was going to jump out at us. The first thing would be a mop handle that was propped against a door incorrectly so it hit me in the face when said door was opened. Then, the next time would be the real deal, giant Lycan, all teeth, claws and malice.
“This is ridiculous, I have got to stop thinking like I’m in a movie,” I muttered.
When we came up to Mathieu’s room, the door was open, so at least I didn’t have to worry about something falling out towards us. The flickering of the torches caused shadows to dance within his room. He stumbled on the edge of a threadbare rug and caught a walking stick before it could fall to the ground. That actually boded well that he caught it; if it had fallen to the floor, it would have startled the hell out of me and been entirely too close to that mop handle.
I looked to his walls, he had dozens of hand drawn pictures and a few pieced-together pictures cut out of magazines of a woman and two children.
“They’re beautiful,” I said as I approached. He seemed embarrassed and saddened as he thanked me. His artwork was incredible. He’d done an amazing job capturing the beauty of his family and their souls; if that was possible, he’d done it. His wife wore a small, lop-sided smile, as if she were asking him how much longer she needed to hold this pose because she had a hundred other things to tend to.
We heard a noise far off in the distance. We both looked at each other. Mathieu quickly grabbed his bow and handed me the large knife he’d been holding when we’d first officially met.
“Might not be anything. Stuff falls all the time in here, been getting worse.”
I hoped that was the case, but I didn’t feel overly confident. Surviving this long meant that I tended to think of the worst-case scenario and planned accordingly. Suddenly, coming down here felt more like retreating to a dungeon rather than a safe haven. There would be more opportunity to see our enemy coming and potentially get away if the need arose if we were topside. Oh, who was I kidding? We were as good as dead in any setting. The only chance we had would be if it were a full moon and Mathieu was a werewolf; but then again, he’d be trying to eat me, so that really wouldn’t work out quite so well either.
My quarters were towards the sound we’d heard. I was weighing the worth of the weapon versus our lives. I would have said screw it if Azile had not told me just how important an artifact the hand axe just might be. If this was a video game, it would most likely be some key that needed to be put into a lock near the end of the game, and without it, you would not be able to complete your task. You’d have to go back and repeat all your previous steps to retrieve it and likely end up dying for your efforts. Yeah, it would be just like that. Although, if I died now, it wouldn’t matter whether I had the damned thing or not.
We started off slow, and then, as if we felt a subtle shift, began to move faster. We still neither heard nor saw anything up to this point. When we got to my quarters without being attacked, I figured we’d somehow dodged danger. I use dodge and not eluded. Dodged is a temporary movement that implies more is coming our way, eluded would be that we had escaped unscathed. Trouble was coming, it just hadn’t found us yet, but the bastard was relentless and would keep looking. It would always keep looking.
“I smell you, Old One!” The words echoed throughout the silo. I swear they were delivered with such force that, if the lighting had been better, I would have been able to see them as they took on a physical presence.
“They are inside,” Mathieu nearly gagged out.
I was going to thank Captain Obvious for his insight, but the words were more of a reflex action. Scared didn’t even begin to describe how he looked. His history with Lycan was more terrifying than my own. I had the hand axe in my hand, hoping I’d have some bolt of electricity run through it like Thor’s Hammer or something. Unfortunately, it was just cold and, at the moment, unnaturally heavy in my weakened state. I felt no better for its heft. What I wouldn’t have done for a magazine full of 5.56 ammunition.
“You are injured. Yes, you are,” he hissed. “I can smell it. Panthros had your blood all over him. Deep blood, Old One. Come out now. It will not be quick, it will not be merciful, but it will be done.”
“Not much of an incentive,” I mumbled.
“You are not joking, are you?”
“Coping mechanism,” I told an astonished Mathieu. “Any idea where he is?”
“The great round room where you say the missile was housed by the sound of it. We can go out a different way.”
“Something is not right here. He would not normally make so much noise. Predators rely on stealth.”
“Perhaps he’s just not afraid.”
“Maybe, not likely though. Three from his pack are dead and he has to believe I did that. He would not be so brazen as to think the same could not happen to him.”
“He knows you are injured.”
“A lion chasing an injured water buffalo does not roar as he charges, not unless he was trying to drive the animal away and into a pre-set trap. Come on, we need to go towards the voice.” I took a few steps; Mathieu did not.
“I do not know what a lion or a water buffalo are, but I can assure you that neither one would willingly go towards a Lycan.”
I pa
used. “Probably right.” I kept moving. After a few more steps, I heard Mathieu fall in behind me.
There were long gaps in the corridor where no torchlight reached. A horde of Lycan could have easily laid in wait for us to get closer before descending upon us. Well, maybe not a horde, just two would be able to do the trick. My steps were slow in direct contrast to whatever the fuck crazy rhythm my heart was pumping to. Humping jackrabbits on crack and coffee couldn’t have matched its pace.
“This is insane,” Mathieu said, not an inch and a half from my ear.
If air could have fit through my constricted throat, I would have screamed. If the blood in my system hadn’t been slamming past my eardrums, he wouldn’t have been able to get so close. What else was I missing? The next sound I heard all-too-clearly; though…I wished I hadn’t. Claws were being dragged against the cement wall. All the Lycan needed was a chalkboard to make the sound that much more grating. I clenched my teeth and, truth be told, my asshole as well.
I had yet to respond to Mathieu, insanity seemed to be my forte. And right now, even I was questioning my plan. Or was it motives? Did Mathieu deserve to be part of my quest for revenge? It was an unfathomable pool from which to dip and no matter how much blood you pulled from its depths you would never strike bottom.
As the claw dragging stopped, I could just make out the missile silo room up ahead, the sunlight spilled through the multitude of holes in the blast doors roof. Standing perfectly silhouetted was a huge Lycan. Maybe he was average size, I don’t know, they’re all fucking huge. I pulled Mathieu close to the wall and even further into the shadows the hallway allowed us.
“Now what?” he asked.
“We see if he’s alone.”
“And then?”
“Well, either he isn’t by himself and we’re really in a jam, or he is, and we’re still in a jam.”
I could hear the material around Mathieu’s neck rustle as he shook his head at the “brilliance” of my plan.
“I can smell the forfeiture of your soul! It is like the taint of spoiled meat!” he yelled so loudly, I felt like one of the three little pigs in that ancient fable as the force of wind rushed past me. Mathieu was shivering, nope, scratch that, it was me.
“We need to move closer.” I was inching forward even as I said it. Why Mathieu didn’t just turn and make a run for it I don’t know, must be the same mentality that made men run from their trenches during war into the hail of machine guns and the rounds they expended by the thousands. We are a strange species. We do so much to preserve our lives, while simultaneously exposing ourselves to known life-threatening situations with no significant benefit in sight.
We’d crept to within twenty feet. The hairy beast was pacing around the parapet looking through all the corridors that led to him. He had made a complete circuit before stopping at our ingress. He stopped for a fraction of a second longer than he should have. Panic began to physically manifest within me. I could feel it like a separate entity manifesting itself out of the dread I was manufacturing. I was building my own monster.
“What are you doing?” Mathieu asked as I separated away from the wall.
I did my best to move with slow and steady steps, hiding my injurious and throbbing leg as best I could.
“Panthros was a pussy,” I said as I stepped out into a circle of light, perfectly visible to the Lycan. “Cried for his bitch the entire time I drank him to death.”
“You are a foul blight among these lands, and I will erase your contaminant!” he bellowed. This one was not much for inaction. He was already on the move, yelling as he purposefully strode towards me.
He had the slightest hesitation in his gait when I didn’t run. By not taking off, I was not triggering his chase response, and this did not sit all that well with him. I had to think that now he was the one looking for the trap. I just wished I had the wherewithal to set one up.
“What are you going to do with that?” he asked, pointing to the axe I had raised up by the side of my head, he was still moving forward, albeit slowly.
“I was really planning on lodging it in your neck.” I was pretty sure my voice didn’t waver as I spoke.
He howled, letting whomever else was in here with him know that something was about to go down. Although, by all appearances, it seemed he wanted to get first crack. He came at me. I knew he had more reach than me even with my arm extended and the blade out. I was in the midst of a swing and not at all that confident about landing when movement in my peripheral caught at least part of my attention. Hard to divert too much when a four hundred pound behemoth is barreling down on you.
Mathieu plunged his knife hilt deep into the Lycan’s side. The strength and speed at which he delivered the strike gave me pause to consider how he’d done it. The Lycan’s arm shot out in a self-defensive gesture, his forearm hitting Mathieu square in the face. I heard the audible cracking of his nose as it shattered under the assault. He was flung to the wall where he crashed hard before sliding to the ground. The knife was still in its side, and whether it had severed a muscle that made his leg move or the animal could not concentrate on anything else due to the extreme pain, I didn’t know. What I did know was that he wasn’t coming at me anymore. In fact, he wasn’t even paying me any more attention.
I put everything I could into that swing. I told the pain in my leg to kiss my ass as I gave a little upward thrust so I could make good on my earlier threat. I buried my blade into the side of his neck almost to the midway point. His Adam’s apple was bobbing up and down as his eyes finally settled on me.
“I told you I was going to do this.” I dislodged my blade.
He had no more fight in him as he fell to his knees, blood flooding his airway and choking his lungs. I had to step to the side as he fell face forward onto the concrete. He was dead before his head touched down. Blood poured out from him. I was so caught up on the kill, I’d forgotten about Mathieu until I saw the blade protruding from the Lycan’s side.
“Are you alright?” He was already starting to stand, his hands on either side of his broken nose trying to stem the flow of blood. “Woo, that looks bad, you’re going to have a hard time getting a date. Here, let me see if I can set it.” Something needed to be done. His sniffer was nearly lying flat against the left side of his face. If I didn’t fix it now, he would forever sound like my English Bulldog Henry after a particularly strenuous four minute workout.
“Is it bad?”
“Worse.” I cupped his nose.
“Is this going to hu—” He yelled out in pain.
“Oh, I would imagine so,” I said as I put his nose back more or less where it belonged with a loud crunching sound that could be equated to the multiple popping of old shipping bubble-wrap, without the satisfaction of tension release.
“Dammit.” He pushed my hands away and covered his nose with his own. He stayed against the wall for a minute.
“Let me see.”
“Better?” he asked, making sure I wasn’t close enough to get to him.
“Your eyeglasses modeling days are over. Maybe you can start up a new career as a hand model.”
Our attention was pulled away as we heard answering howls approaching.
“We need to go.” Mathieu was tugging on my sleeve.
“Just need a few seconds. I want them to think about what they’re getting into here.” I turned back to the dead Lycan and after a few well-placed chops and some minimal dragging the effect was achieved. Another howl came, this one almost on top of us.
“No time.” Mathieu dragged me into a small room ten feet back from where the Lycan lay. Odds were that it was a maintenance closet, but all that remained were some aluminum shelving. Even the door was gone, which did little to ease our feelings of being overly exposed.
It was a good thing we did not retreat down the corridor we came. We eventually heard the padded feet of something coming our way and it wasn’t a mystery what it was. A dark shadow blazed by our hideout not slowing or looking in ou
r direction. We could hear him sniffing and then a cry of outrage contaminated the airwaves.
“Viln, what is wrong?” another asked. He must have come from a different direction. It would have been like playing Russian roulette with a Lycan-loaded hallway.
“Quillian is dead and he has been beheaded!”
“Beheaded?” I could almost hear the reverence in his tone. “He will forever wander the plains not able to find all who have gone before him.”
“The Old One took his head and placed it upside down on his body!” I think it was Viln that vociferated. “He must be killed! He took my mate’s life and afterlife. He must die so that I can recover at least one of them.”
Normally this would be where I cracked some wise-ass joke about pissing off another woman. At the time, though, the thought didn’t even cross my mind. We were less than ten feet away from three Lycan with little more than sharp, pointy things.
“We must discuss this with Xavier. There is also the smell of the infected here,” one of the Lycan piped up. I was hoping his seemingly infinite wisdom would prevail. Unless, of course, Xavier was here now. Then we were in a serious dilemma.
“Xavier is not here!” Viln shrieked. Well, as much as a Lycan shrieks. A Viking would have been proud to call the sound she made a war cry.
Well, that answered that part.
“We cannot stay here, Viln. This place smells of death.”
“Are you afraid, Haarg?” she growled.
He growled back. “I am not afraid!”
“Maybe we should be,” the third said.
“There are three of us, Roamer. Do you not believe we can kill one Old One?” Viln sneered. Even in another species I could detect the contempt with which she delivered those words.
“Do not doubt me, Viln. I am still the leader of this mission, and this Old One you would dismiss so easily has already laid four of our brothers into their final sleep. I do not wish to join them, not without a proper Mojid.”