Chapter 11

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God, I felt great, with something like a blanket hugging me from behind. Maybe Katrina, I sighed contently and wanted hug her back but turning over my breathing got harder. Opening my eyes slowly I was faced with utter darkness. Turning back over, onto what I could now feel as my unobstructed back, I was still pure darkness as I groped for my chest light and clicked it on so I could stare at a stained ceiling.

I came back…Hello Perdition and goodbye Katrina…Sitting up I saw my weapon harness, weapons, and assault vest hanging from the end of the bed I was on…and that I was the only one here. With a groan and various throbbing in my back, chest, and legs I got my feet under me, pulled my equipment back on and checked to make sure everything was there, it was. Tired of having the riot gun slammed into my back I hefted it in both hands and then let it hang from one when I opened the door and stepped into a foul smelling and trashed living room, in which resided one decapitated body on the dining table.

I knew it wasn’t Joe as women’s clothing and breasts gave it away, plus the woman’s head sitting on the floor staring at a wall. Had it been bad enough when I was fucked up that he’d actually holed us up with a decaying corpse? And if so where was he and why was the door clear? Unless he’d been moving this body….”Joe?” I said softly, keeping an eye on the body and peeking through the closet and bathroom doors, nothing and no one.

More than happy to leave this place I stepped into the hallway, this was even worse than I remembered it but thankfully corpse free. I started down the hall in the direction I thought we’d been going, my riot gun raised as I continually looked behind me at every creak and noise, whether imagined or not I had no idea. Before I reached the turn in the hall unsteady footsteps from behind reached my ears and turned to see an empty hallway, the only way sound could be coming was…I took a few quick jumps around the corner and the one after it but the whole hall was empty so the only place the sound could reverberate this clearly from was probably the open apartment door I’d exited.

Coming back to that stretch of hallway the steps were louder but there was still nothing visible…shit, I took a knee and grabbed an empty can of peaches with a fuzzy one still left inside and threw it at the door. Waiting for a moment I finally spotted movement as a slender, discolored leg stepped out the door. Focusing on my aim obsessively I leaned my head back from the sights a bit so I didn’t chip a tooth from recoil and then almost lost it when the decapitated body stepped into the hallway and turned in my direction. There was another thing amiss besides the lack of cranium, which was a strange force struggling around in the body’s stomach. The thing was slow and still a few yards back so I chanced a look over my shoulder and was relieved nothing was waiting as I’d thought. Taking aim again I fired at the legs and took a good chunk out of the hip as the thing started to fall back but was then abruptly stopped by two legs that shot out if it’s back.

I literally felt my face pale and bile rise as a pair of hands came out from between the thighs, jerked them up, and pulled them apart with a sound like cloth tearing as a blackened and deformed torso began to slid out. I heard something rattling and looked to my gun as it shook uncontrollably in my hands before going off seemingly on its own volition, taking out one of the new legs. The thing that fell out a yard or so from me looked like a charred baby with spikes for fingers and I lost it, reeling forward as a stream of vomit came out. After a few years of therapy I could maybe find the fact that vomit had splattered on the burnt demon baby funny but at the moment I found nothing funny. When I recovered enough to see the thing vault towards me with a hand pulled back. Unable to react I felt the force and white hot pain as it slashed my face and the right side of my head, sending me into a backwards somersault from the force. To my credit, I followed through and came to my feet almost two yards away before pumping another round into the riot gun’s chamber and reducing the little bastard to giblets of meat and blood spatter. Thankfully it had just grazed my face but I swear I’d felt claws rake across the side of my skull. Doing a complete 360 in place and holding my gun up I looked from the remains to the crumbled and destroyed body behind it. Somehow this looked funnier and funnier the longer I looked and before I knew it I was bent over with laughter, watching dribbles of my blood land at my feet. The idea of a headless chick being impregnated was the funniest damn thing I’d ever seen until it became the worst thing I’d ever thought of and the dry heaving began.

It felt like my insides were trying to tear away from me like everyone else had been, I realized I was alone in this decrepit hallway with only a dead body and pieces of meat when the tears began. I rushed to the now vacated apartment, grabbed the head and punted it out the apartment like a football before slamming the door. I crumpled to the floor and held my gun like a teddy bear. Sobbing madly and silently screaming in despair of my situation, I gave up all hope of living as warm threads of blood trickled around the corners of my mouth and down my neck…didn’t want to live with these scenes and the memories I had. My throat was throbbing after a few minutes, or an hour for all I knew, as I cringed, cried, and moaned while I pulled myself to my ass, held my knees, rocked and continued to grasp the shotgun as if my life depended on it…and in a lot of ways it did.  

Scooting back into a wall I stared left to right as tears continued to intermingle with the slashes on my face, burning and bringing me back to myself a small bit. Looking up at the wall in front of me I saw an emergency first aid kit hanging there. Standing up I picked it off the wall and removed a roll of gauze and some alcohol pads. The pads sting was harsh enough to quiet my emotions as I began the difficult process of aiding my face without a mirror, swabbing the cuts, wiping the blood away with gauze, and trying to determine the damage by touch.

The cuts didn’t feel deep until they went past my temple and were spaced somewhat by pieces of untouched skin. The little bastard had given me around twelve short, painful cuts across my cheeks and jaw. Three slashes on the right side of my head probably went to the skull, with one welt over my nose. Most were able to fit under a few large Band-Aids. Rising to my feet and taking in short, shallow breaths I wedged the aid kit between my flak jacket and assault vest then replenished the riot gun’s tube.

The hallway was dead silent when I exited the apartment, looking back I saw orange light filtering from the apartment bedroom. Walking in I found the light coming through the only window and peered out to see the sky had been replaced with a churning, rolling inferno burning over the town. Too mentally and emotionally exhausted to really react, I stared in wonderment at this until a bank of thick, grey clouds slowly rolled over it, bathing the outside in a dull grey light.

Pulling my phone out the display said my signal was cooked by the sky as the roaming Icon took up the whole screen, I couldn’t even see what the goddamn time was. Taking a shuddering breath I felt my breakdown had passed for now, taking its place was a light feeling in my chest overwhelmed with apathy. I felt nothing emotionally and thought of the scene out the window as a strange instance in an ever more fucked up world…in a way I hoped this kept up...the sky had been almost beautiful. Back in the hallway I stepped over the discarded shell of the woman and made my way to the other end of the corridor. I did nothing to quiet my footsteps or look behind me. I didn’t care at this point; the only door at the end of the hall was an emergency exit with a red exit sign blazing above it. I wondered…inserting the key I’d found earlier into the doorknob was received with a ‘click’ when turned and the door swung open into blackness. Clicking the riot gun’s light on I aimed into the blackness and was rewarded with a staircase leading down to a small foyer.

Descending, I was faced with a single door, no more stairs and was pretty sure I wasn’t in the apartment building any more. This door opened to a dank elevator holding a man’s body propped up in the corner, a small pistol dangled limply from his right hand. Returning my shotgun to the harness I unholstered the desert eagle and grabbed the guy’s foot, causing the gun to clatter to the ground. Keeping my pistol trained on the head I pulled the dead meat into the foyer, stepped into the elevator and hit the only button there which was marked with an infinity sign before snatching up the pistol. I was glad I’d reacted as I did when I saw the man’s stomach began to writhe and twist as the doors closed. The pistol was a Beretta 92 FC compact with five shells left in the clip.

Something banged into the elevator doors I was now rising from while I switched through my equipment and went with the Colt and my wakizashi, maybe more for psychological effect than anything else though I did have ranged and melee weapons equipped now…if I only I’d brought my character sheet so I knew what my firearms and melee stats were. The elevator slowed and the doors slid open with a ‘ding’ to another elevator, though it was more like a mine lift with the wire cage look and the big remote connected to the cab with a thick, black cord. It had two buttons, one with an up arrow and one with a down arrow and looking up there was only a large slab of rock, or dirt, maybe concentrated evil for all I knew so down it is.

Hitting the button caused the car to jerk and go still, sighing, I held the button down and the car descended smoothly into…well, hell if I knew what I was even breathing, why was another transition happening again so soon? The lift grinded to a halt in a rusty corrugated metal shaft with an equally rusted metal door to the right of me and I set the controller down. Stepping though it I found myself in an overgrown baseball field, made evident by the collapsed batter’s cage a few dozen yards away. The sky was still overcast with light from the inferno giving grey daylight to the whole area, prompting me to kill my lights, the weather was temperate and overly warm to me from my clothes and the chill I‘d been dealing with.

What sounded like the faint roar of distant surf intermingled with the wind, bringing about a disorientating feeling of wearing ear plugs as my boots crunched the dead grass under them. I tapped my gun on the blade of the wakizashi, which produced a dull clinking instead of the expected sharp ‘ting’, to make sure my feeling was right. It had the quality of dream noises, discernable but lacking the sharpness that normal reality owns.

“Looks like I’ve reached the next paragraph.”, I said to myself, remembering Ezekiel’s summarization of reality, “Just the next part of the book.”, I tried to reassure myself, but it seemed my mind was way ahead of my conciseness for the fact that I’d stepped onto a elevator that wasn’t really there and ended up in a baseball field. I wasn’t overly shaken by this, just moderately curious on how it all worked. Was the elevator some mental representation of a fold in reality? A wormhole-like thing to this ‘other dimension’ we’d previously gone through…that got my heart rate up slightly. I really didn’t want to deal with anymore dead children on my own and right in front of me was a middle school.

Though being emotionally inert for the time being I still jumped when the distant crack of rifle fire rang out from the somewhere in the school, guess a gun was always set to ear-bleeding no matter what facet of reality it was in. Gun fire…Aden, Joe and Don! I sprinted the field in less than a minute and halted quickly in the playground as the one thing I hoped against came true…children…dead…set up like mannequins in a mock scene of recess. I was shocked and disgusted, but the clenching of my stomach had come and gone in the few seconds it took my mind to process the scene, as if it said, “More dead kids? Oh, ok, like that’s new.”, and moved on. I tried to make myself feel worse about the spectacle; I mean really, there was a child with its hands stapled to the monkey bars so it would hang there. Though it seemed the twisted fuck hadn’t thought ahead as one wrist had rotted to the point where the arm hung limp at the side while the other had remained stuck on the bar so the kid reminded me of a fucked up Christmas ornament. Why hadn’t intestine been stung around the playground like garland to add a festive look, maybe a few wreaths of human hair with a head for a bow?

“What the hell Joel, stop!” I shook my head to rid these thoughts, sickened because I knew I should feel something when I couldn’t. I continued to look over the playground from where I stood, unable to elicit a single emotional response until the echoes began…the sound of laughing children, happy chattering, and footsteps echoed throughout the playground and I didn’t need to try for feeling anymore as contempt and disgust began to creep through me. I felt my lips draw thin and eyes narrow as the sick soundtrack continued and I started through the scene to a pair of glass double doors.

“Hey mister!” a child’s voice called from my left, turning I saw one of the corpses of a little boy drop down, hanging from a rope on the awning. “Will you walk me home to hell?” it held a grenade and was only a few feet away from me…

“Oh shit...” I muttered as the little hand eased up and let the handle release. Planting a foot on the ground I lunged through the air to my right and began to roll as my shoulder glanced off the ground and the grenade went off.

“Aw, don’t you want to play with us Julie?” a little girls voice asked from behind me as I came to my feet. Turning quickly, a little girl impaled on a display stand looked at me with cataract eyes and held out a grenade to me…the pin was pulled on this one too. Without hesitation or really thinking, I grabbed the grenade and threw it over the girl’s head where it detonated over the jungle gym and brought down the hanging child.

“You’re no fun!” the girl declared with a pout, “Are you angry because everyone thinks you’re a girl?”

“Why don’t you just rot in peace.”, I growled, taking a step back and looking around feverishly for any more ‘toys‘, how did this thing know my ‘nickname‘ from school.

“I know! You’re just a sore loser.” the body replied accusingly, “You haven’t done anymore than us lately and won’t play ‘cus you’re just afraid of losing!”, she continued to declare, pointing a finger at me while the echoes of recess’ past continued to play. “That’s why your friends left you, you’re just a lazy no-funner!”

“Well honey.” I said in a sweet voice, putting my hands on my knees and bringing my face to ‘her’ level at an arm’s distance, “You’re quite entitled to your own opinion.”, how do you reply to a little dead girl insulting you? The face took on a look of confusion and a tooth fell onto her bloated, blue tongue. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to find my friends and do something with my life for right now, because unlike you I can walk.” I turned and walked to the double doors where the first child had been blown up, literally. I felt strangely satisfied for telling off that dead child, and somehow I knew I had when no response came when I entered the school.

I stood in a wide hallway that led to an even larger common room with classroom doors along the circular walls, the area had been painted in bright blues and yellows now faded and covered in clinging dust. A tattered and soiled banner welcoming children and teachers to the first day of school still hung above the end of the hallway, scattered backpacks, lunch boxes, and school supplies littered the floors. The smell of spoiled food was a sweet, sickly smell I’d take over rotting garbage and corpses any day.

“Oh bullshit…” I groaned when a particular backpack stood out to me. It didn’t have some cute children’s show character or super hero on it, just a plain black backpack but the slashed front pocket and brand gave it away. I Picked the thing up and unzipped it, inside was a notebook with “Julius Winters”, scrawled in my early handwriting, “So you really think with everything else I’m going to be traumatized by memories of school?”, I mused at the ceiling, this was just insulting. I returned the notebook, added the first aid kit to the little backpack and slung it over my shoulder; the kit had been really uncomfortable over my already bruised chest.

So, whatever controlled this little slice of strange reality thought I was…what? Going to have all the trials and fears of my youth brought up to drive me into a depressive hole or something? I chuckled at this idea as I walked into the common area, “Geez, give me a break, somehow everything here isn’t worse than childhood?”

“Hey Julie!”, a little boy called, drawing ‘Julie’ out mockingly. Really now?

“Hey Joey!”, I mocked, looking to a classroom door on my left. Yep, Joey Franks, my old middle school bully, not relation in any way to Joe though….this was sad.

“That’s some pretty hair Julie.”, he had his arms crossed, wearing that damn blue polo with the alligator on it, blue jeans and Nike sneakers . We didn’t go to school together at a place like this; it was a private school where everyone’s parents were richer than mine. Trite, I know but my parents worked hard to get me there and it’s probably the reason I’ve been pretty well learned. “Where’s your bow?”, the little bastard had made me wear a bow in my hair one day after a particularly cheap shot to the stomach, and yeah, I was getting slightly angry remembering this. I considered what I had usually been facing and the idea for a little emotional release hit me.

“Gosh Joey, that was a fun day huh?” I strode up to him with hands on my hips, an evil smirk on my face matching his.

“What are you so happy about?”, he leered.

“Well Joey, you’re an executive over in Chicago right now and in this little instance I’m a lot bigger than you for once.”, I stopped a few feet from him as he screwed up a look of anger,  Joey used to have an anger problem that turned into a drinking problem by high school.

“You’re dead meat!”, he cried, raising a fist as a large smile broke my face and I pistol whipped his shoulder, ah sweet revenge.

“Why’d you do that!?”, Joey had started crying, cradling his now bruised arm and sat down.

“Because you were an arrogant little bastard at this age.”, he’d gotten therapy during college, cleaned up his act, got married, and now made a six figure income living the American dream with 2.5 kids. I held nothing against him for that. I’m actually happy he stopped fucking up, so if it had been grown up Joseph I probably would’ve been unemotional about it, since this wasn’t in the reality I knew so well, “And you made my life pretty crappy at one time, but it’s a hell of a lot worse now so you’re just a little side note.”, I was starting to feel kind of bad, real or whatever I’d hit a child figure with a pistol, ah well. I put my wakizashi away.

“You broke my arm!” he cried out, grabbing his shoulder more intensely and rubbed it, he was exaggerating; if it was broken he would be in more pain touching it.

“Bullshit, get up.”, I motioned with my Colt, “I have no fucking clue what you are, but you’re real enough and a child.”, I walked over took him by the unhurt arm, lifting Joey to his feet with a surprisingly gentle touch, “But you’re going to keep in line with me now or I’ll really kick the crap out of you.”, I told him sternly to his face, he was the ‘problem child’ at this age, hitting teachers and the like. Though strangely enough always did his homework and got good grades, turns out his dad used to beat him for anything less than an A…sad shit. “Got it?”, I took his chin in two fingers and made him look at me. He nodded frantically, fear now coming into his eyes.

“I’m not sorry I hurt you, your dad maybe a dick for beating you over stupid stuff-”

“How did you know!?” he looked downright pale now and seemed to view me differently…what the hell? Had to be a trick…maybe, maybe not.

“Because I beat the crap out of him.”, I lied, my parents had actually called the cops when they saw Joey’s face one day after picking me up, and something like odd affection took over me.

“R-really?”, he stammered.

“Yeah”, I released his chin, “So stick close and if you mess with me I’ll mess with you right back.”, wow, what the fuck was going on here?

“Are you...protecting me or something?”

“Been on the playground?”

“God no…” he looked down at his feet and I dug the first aid kit out of the backpack after standing up.

“Here”, I held out a little packet of Tylenol, “I’ll help with the pain.”, he took it wordlessly and swallowed the pill with some water I offered.

“Is there anyone else here?” I looked down at him, damn was I smaller than that at one time?

“There was two people with guns dressed like you that went by here.” my eyes widened.

“Where?”

“They went that way.” he pointed down the other hallway that led deeper into the school, which got progressively darker. “There’s also Victoria, I think she’s still around.”

“Why are you here?”

“I don’t know.” he shrugged his shoulders in annoyance while keeping his voice straight,”Just that I am.”

“Fine, where’s Victoria?”

“On the roof.”

“Why?”

“Likes it up there, she doesn’t like me though. Says I’m a bully.”

“You were, but now you’re going to stop.” I put a hand on his back and he flinched reflexively, “Come on, I may not like you that much but I’ll get over it.”, with my newfound ‘buddy’ in tow, I flicked on my chest light and started down the hallway. Strange grunts and half voices echoed from behind closed doors as we passed by them and Joey voiced that whatever they were, they never came out. I’d take his word with a grain of salt for now and kept alert for any movement from Joey or the doors, fuck…alone with a solid apparition of my old elementary school bully, at least it wasn’t my ex-girlfriend with me because if anything was going to turn into a demonic abomination it would be her.

I began thinking how right Ezekiel may have been as the sounds, constant threat of danger, and paranoia were becoming as commonplace to me as food is to someone with an eating disorder. I’d been reading the next line in this novel that was life and started to accept it…I guess, wow, doesn’t that sound special? Another thing, if I ran into Aden and Don, or Joe, would they be the real ones or like Joey? Unless Joseph was, in fact, as real as I am…shit, here comes the mental diagnosis…guess I’ll just have to go on faith or risk insanity and trusting no-one while shooting everyone indiscriminately. I wondered when the aliens were going to show up and probe my ass.

“Why are you here?” Joey asked from my right.

“No clue, supposed to do some things at the base.”

“What base?” was this a distraction from something?

“Fort Shasta in Perdition.”

“Oh.”, he went quiet, maybe not, nothing was jumping out and from a glance over, Joey wasn’t growing a set of spikes and neither his stomach was squirming with demonic unlife. Shit…I was still losing it, how crazy was I now? We took a left towards the media center/library after a few more distant pops of silenced automatic gunfire reached us, that was a definite sign one of my friends was nearby. What were they shooting at that we didn’t find? Maybe they opened one of those doors…I picked up the pace.

We came to the last turn before coming to the front of the library and a few flashes of light and the deafening sound of Aden’s Longslide bit into my eardrums. After a few minutes of silence I called out Aden’s name.
“Joel!”, it was him, the first sound of excitement I’d heard from him in a long time.

“Is everything clear!?”

“Is now! I’m coming out!”, and a few seconds later he stepped into the hall, a large gash on his right shoulder, another on his forehead and the straight razor dripping blood in his left hand…and Don’s MP5 in the other.

“What happened to Don?” I asked hollowly.

“He passed out again.” Aden motioned for me to follow him into the library and Joey grabbed my free hand, Aden looked at me strangely but I just shrugged. Book shelves were knocked over with books covering the floor; bullet holes peppered the walls and had taken chunks out of said shelves and books as well. What had attacked the two looked like a human body had been put through a taffy machine, had its skin ripped off, and had a few insect parts added to the head. In the gray dank of the library behind a makeshift barrier lay Don, he was scraped up a bit himself but breathing regularly.

“Has this kept happening?”, I stood over Don and looked to Aden.

“Not until a few minutes ago, can’t handle the stress,”

“What happened to you two?”

“We went in that other entrance you asked us to check at the apartments, turned around and found it locked with steel bars on the outside.”, Aden lit a smoke and took a knee next to Don, checking the MP5’s clip before returning it home, “Took a guess at what was probably going on.”

“The doors leading to different places, yeah, it wasn’t like that though.” I lit up my own one handed, Joey now had a death grip on my hand with his face buried in my side, funny how my motivation to toke had been gone when I was alone, blessed smoke.

“Happened to us.”, he blew out a long stream and studied it intently, “So we waited around for about half an hour but it was still black as sin outside so we said ‘fuck it’ and looked for a way out.”

“Couldn’t just bust the lock?”

“Tried, didn’t even dent. The lock was broken…” I laughed, coughing on the smoke in my lungs and gave Joseph a small one armed squeeze, there were three more of those stretched out things just a few feet away. I couldn’t care if they’d still been twitching…I had my friends again, well, two of them anyways.

“Who’s he?” Aden motioned with his smoke, seemingly unconcerned by the random child in tow.

“This is Joey Franks, my old school bully; he’s an executive out in Chicago now.”

“Huh.”, Aden examined the child for a moment before taking another drag, “Why’s he a kid then?”

“Whatever controls this place must’ve thought I’d be traumatized by recollections of my childhood ails, that’s my only guess.” I looked to Joey and pointed the floor near me, “Come on, take a seat next to me, nothing’s going to hurt you.”, and Joey sat obediently when I did.

“What happened to his arm?”, Aden noticed the blackish-blue discoloration.

“Hit him.”

“Why?”

I shook my head, “Fucking retarded thing, he started to take a swing at me and I pistol whipped him.”

“Probably not the coolest thing to do.”, Aden gave me a sharp look, I wondered how all these dead children made him feel since he had a live one at home.

“No, so I’m protecting him now I guess.” I took a long draw and felt some apprehension melt away, “He feels and reacts real enough for me, couldn’t just leave him.”

“Little fight between good and evil going on in you?”

“Yeah…and some emotional freezing.” I tapped Don on the shoulder, “Did you open one of the doors?”

“Yep, those things came after us, around seven. Now there are none. I’m pretty close to that emotional death lately, I understand.”, Aden unscrewed his flask and repeated the process from the basement and Don stirred.

“Joel!” he exclaimed, opening his eyes, “Where’s Joe?” he looked around quickly, “Where am I?”

“Same place you were before passing out.” Aden replied with a little annoyance.

“Sorry.”, Don looked down at the MP5 on his chest and sat up on his ass with it in hand, pulling a cigarette of his own, “Who is that?”, he spotted Joey before lighting his smoke and I told him what I’d told Aden.

“What do you mean I’m not real?” Joey had taken offense to this and finally was showing it, his little hands clenched into fists. He looked up at me, I saw the hands unclench just as quickly and gave him a little smile, “I am real…and hungry.” Don automatically handed him a protein bar from his backpack, it was a little crushed but Joey ate it with no complaint.

“How’s your back.” I asked Don, remembering how mine was feeling and joyously the pain came to the forefront of my mind.

“Hurts” he rubbed it from under the flak jacket.

“What now? We randomly find each other but not Joe…” Aden trailed off and finished his smoke, crushing it on the grimy carpet.

“We need to get through this screwed up maze. Joey said there was a girl, Victoria, on the roof.”

“Are we turning into a mobile orphanage?”, Aden replied, standing up and I took out my first aid kit for him, “Nice.”, he took it and began to clean up his wounds after producing a tiny mirror. With all of us on our feet and Aden patched up I turned to Joey.

“Where is the roof access?”

“There’s a ladder on the side of the school.”, he replied.

“Which side?” I bend to one knee.

“That one I think.”, he pointed over my shoulder, “Look…”, he shuffled his feet, “You were mean, but not as bad as I thought…standing up to me and all, but you also wanted to help me afterwards, which is cool and all.”.

“There’s a ‘but’ here.” I looked at him intently; damn this was surreal and fucking weird to boot.

“I’m gonna head back to my classroom I think, it’s safe in there.”

“Ok, need an escort?” I wasn’t going to argue, I still had no clue what he really was or what we’d do with him when the shooting would inevitably start again.

“A what?” he scrunched his face up in a classic child’s ‘I don’t understand’ look.

“Want us to walk you back?” I rephrased.

“No.”, he shook his head, “I’ll be fine, those other kids don’t come inside and I don’t open the doors.”, he gave Don and Aden a look before turning and walking out of the library, “Se ya Joel!”, he called back. Joy, I’d inadvertently laid some supposed childhood trauma to rest. Well, this place thought I did but in all honesty I couldn’t have cared less, least he didn’t mutate into something fucked up and eat my head.

“What was that about?”, Don looked at me with a confused look.

“Seems like some sort of visualization of putting childhood fears that don’t exist to rest or some shit.” I replied, making sure the Colt’s silencer was on tightly.

“What?” he looked at me strangely.

“Exactly.”, satisfied it was secured I stretched my shoulders and looked to Aden, “To the roof?”

“What else would we do?” he smiled slightly, yeah, we were happy to be reunited but there wasn’t going to be another group hug until we’d found Joe.

Exiting the library we took a left down the hall in the direction Joey had pointed,  a few more random turns, and came to another set of glass double doors leading to a concrete walkway that twisted off to the side and out of sight. Heading out I was relieved to find zero dead children on this side of the building but the ladder we did find, it was bolted to the wall a few feet above our heads…great.

There was nothing lying around we could use as a boost and someone would be left behind if we boosted ourselves and that wasn’t going to happen. Looking around I spotted a trailer, the type where schools held the ‘special’ classes to keep the mentally disadvantaged out of the main building and away from the ’normal’ kids. There were a few windows with the blinds up revealing an empty room with some tables, chairs, and some badly done drawings on the wall under a banner that proclaimed what special drawings they were to be done by such special children…Jesus, you could give them a little more credit. I mean sure, I could draw that well when I was three but still.

The door was locked but one solid kick gained us access to the dusty, foul smelling trailer where a dead man was tied to the teacher’s chair. It was another decayed individual, pen through the windpipe and the words “I’m special” written on his forehead with thumbtacks. A few larva squirmed in and out of the face, after a quick view we grabbed the desk in front of him and hauled it to the ladder.

The school roof was a mess of central heating and cooling units, pipes, and an untold amount of dead birds. Watching our steps we scoured the roof as one before turning back to see a small girl with her back to us standing on the edge of the roof we’d climbed up and looking at a spot of the rolling tempest that peeked through a break in the clouds. Brilliant rays of reddish gray light splashed a section of town in the distance that quickly erupted in a balloon of fire that seemed to rise a hundred yards in the air. A slight rumbling and the brush of a light concussive force flowed past us as the break closed up.

“Victoria?” I spoke softly, didn’t even wonder how we could have missed her. She probably spawned a few seconds ago or something anyways.

“Have you considered why the sky is on fire?” the girl asked in a small, concise voice before turning halfway to look back at us after a minute, the distant flames receded out of sight. She had black hair that touched the small of her back, large green eyes, and pale freckled skin.

“No.” Aden replied before Don and I could.

“What do you think?” she locked eyes with me after giving Aden an appraising glance; she didn’t have the look of a child in her eyes or mannerisms.

“We’re in Hell.” I said.

“You’re only partially right.” She stated simply before dropping off the edge of the roof, her little blue dress billowing behind her.

Seconds later a batch of Stretchers, what Aden and Don had slaughtered in the library and termed due to their movement, and what you’d be carried out on if they got to you. Popped a skylight cover and converged a few dozen yards from us, seemingly ignorant of our presence.

“Those look different.” I muttered to Aden.

“They change after you kill them.” Aden replied

“Takes about half a clip from this.” Don patted his MP5, “I’ve only got two full magazines left.”. Shit, I didn’t value my skill on CQC up against a pair of the things long, curved claws and wasting my ammo wasn‘t a top priority either.

“How’s your rifle holding up?” I asked Aden.

“Four spare clips, Longslide has about three plus a few bullets left in the gun.”, Aden took the pistol out and pointed it at the group of about seven. They moved something like a slinky with a pair of legs, or feet, well I’ll just go with appendages. That touched the ground a few feet from them before the rest of the body just…snapped to the spot. They had featureless, pointed heads with the skin texture and color of obsidian that continually twitched in all directions like a meth addled sparrow.

“Do we have another way down?” why did I ask when none of us knew? Those damn things blocked our way back to the only known ladder and hell if I knew how strong their senses were, not too good if they hadn’t picked up on at least our voices.

Don grunted.

“Why don’t we back up and find one?” Aden suggested, “Watch those things while we look.” he tapped me on the shoulder. Backing up when I heard their footsteps I kept an eye on the Stretchers and switched to my M4 to keep a bead on them. Thankfully we’d been ignored thus far so I chanced a look behind me; we hadn’t reached an edge yet, couldn’t even see one.

“How big is this damn school?”, Don whispered in frustration.

“Considering things,” Aden replied, “Could be miles or maybe the roof will just disappear underneath us.”

“Great mental picture.” Don said. I was too concentrated on the group to add anything as they’d begun to move to our right, not towards us but our right, their left. It almost seemed like they moved with a purpose, though it’s hard to tell when something’s bounding around like randy bouncy ball.

“Stop.”, Aden spoke into my ear with a hand on my shoulder.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Take a look.” he tapped my shoulder twice; I took it to say he’d taken up my sentry job and I was right. Turning I saw Don just staring over the edge, looking over too I saw we had arrived above the playground with those fun-loving, homicidal undead children staring right up at us….oh shit…and of course, there was a ladder.

“They’re moving our way…sort of.” Aden warned.

“Sort of?” I looked at the scene.

“I think they’re sweeping the roof, back and forth pattern.” Aden looked back for a moment as he spoke.

“Fuck me sideways…” I muttered, staring back at the children smiling greedily up at us, “You know some of those little bastards carry grenades?”, I asked Don.

“No...” he really didn’t like that.

“Shit, down we go.” I looked back at the group, still a good ways off but definitely searching…strange… Tapping Aden’s shoulder once he turned and followed me to the ladder where Don had already started down, “You think gunfire will catch their attention?”, I asked Aden.

“Maybe, I have no clue, they were onto me and Don pretty well in the school.” he swung himself down the ladder and began to descend. I wondered if the dead kids would pull themselves off those mannequin polls and chase us with live grenades; maybe we’d play a nice game of hide-and-go-fuck-yourself as well. When Aden was halfway down I followed and landed on the concrete less than a minute later with all eyes on us.

“Where the fuck do we go?” Don asked, looking from kid to kid with an anxious look. I felt the same way, little fuckers were just waiting for us to get close enough... Looking to the baseball field I saw the shack still sat on the edge and pointed it out, “There was a lift in there, brought me here.”

“Man, all we did was open a door and, hello, welcome to class.”, Don replied, “Damn this place.” he growled, I guessed he was getting pissed off with the continuous threat of death too, when he wasn’t passing out…sorry Don. Taking a moment to look through the M4’s scope I spotted explosives in the hands of all but three kids that I could see, wow…like a minefield made of dead children…this was fun. The playground was surrounded on our left side by the school building itself and the other sides in front and behind us had a nine foot tall chain-link fence with a few openings to come and go, I also saw for the first time that the windows had thick bars on them. Was this place slowly changing?

“How many?” Aden asked me, glancing above us.

“Few dozen, didn’t take time to count.” elapsed time less than a minute. “Only a couple with empty hands.”

“Shiiiit…”, Aden drew it out, “Fuck it, let’s go.”, he started at a run, causing Don and I to follow. The spectral sounds of children were still playing like elevator music in the area, the kids struggled on their posts as we started into the playground and I feared my estimation of their actions might be correct.

“Don’t leave us!”, one yelled, it’s voice rasping as a grenade bounced near my feet. Kicking in mid-step I glanced the thing and spun it away from us, somewhat, and a loud detonation rocked us and Don cried out. I could see a little trickle of blood running from his left ear. Must’ve blown an eardrum…that had to hurt, but he didn’t slow, adrenaline can do funny things to you. Another wave of contempt caught me, this time at these little abominations as another grenade thunked to the ground nearby. Acting on another stupidly suicidal impulse I retrieved the thing and chucked it back to a little group of the bastards, multiple ‘thuwmps’ sounded and blackened meat flew everywhere seconds later.

I was now, once again as always, behind the other two since I’d stopped to deal some retribution and two more pineapples came my way leading to another lunging dodge forward. I thanked my year of hurdles in track for my stellar recovery and pounding the ground once more without a pause while my bruises and cuts thundered in protest. Pushing myself, I was able to gain a safe distance and sped through the playground and out though the opening in the fence to join Aden and Don in heavy, labored breathing.

Looking back at the playground we heard ragged, liquid like laughing rising over the faux sounds of playtime…the decayed little assholes were laughing at us. Taking aim down the scope I shot one of them in the head, imploding it, which cutting the laugher short, I nodded in satisfaction.

“Go fuck yourselves.” I muttered to the remaining devil children and took a seat on the dried out grass for a smoke.

“That was almost funny.” Aden commented on my shot, “I’ll laugh about it later.” guess we were past the phase of side splitting laugher.

“See anything on the roof?” I asked Don, who had been staring at the school.

“Some movement, still doing whatever they were before.”

“Then how the hell did they attack us…” Aden rubbed his chin, contemplating.

“Dude, look where we are.” I waved a hand around, “You see the sky before the clouds moved in?”

“Only that little bit on the roof.”

“There’s a fucking inferno going on up there.”

“No shit…” he didn’t find this piece of information very interesting it appeared, “You came out of that thing?”, he pointed to the rusted shack and I affirmed it. Standing up with a groan, I made my way across the field with the others and opened the door to the shack. Surprisingly, the lift was still there and a small orange light on the controller was glowing to confirm power. When we were all in I held down the up button and waited to come even with the elevator, which did not happen. Instead the lift came to a halt in an identical looking corrugated metal room with an equally rusted door in front of us.

“The hell.” I muttered, wondering what had changed now.

“It…It didn’t take us back to the school did it?”, Don asked.

“Last time I stepped from an elevator to this.” I shrugged, “Oh well.”, Dropping the controller I opened the door and was greeted with a wall of frigid air and the starry night sky over Perdition.

“We’re…what, back?” Aden mused with the smallest hint of a smile. Stepping out I spotted the exact same school illuminated by the moonlight “Alicia Intermediate School” stood out on the building in large, bold letters.

“Maybe that was actually ‘Perdition’.” I looked at the brown grass at my feet, thinking that blazing sky was some sort of hint.

“Were we in hell?” Don seemed shaken by this, and I was in league with Aden now by just wondering.

“Maybe, maybe some distorted reality, that little girl said Hell was only slightly correct.”, Aden replied.

“Maybe all that DMT in the booze simulated our pineal glands a little too much?” I opined. Our good friend Set, who was so lucky to not be here, believed the pineal gland was something imbued with hidden Godlike powers. In all actuality it was the gland behind your forehead that produced dreams…wonder how much he’d freak here with those beliefs.

“Back in ‘normal’ Perdition and Joe is still missing…shit, he’s probably dead.”, Don said, the man was a voice of sunshine and lollipops, more so than myself. Though I considered, by the light of the moon, that it was better than having some happy-go-lucky fuck with a ’glass is half full’ demeanor and a fear of guns tell us to follow an autistic kid that could fold reality…that would just be stupid.