%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |
A post-apocalyptic fantasy adventure story. |
|
{div align="justify"} Thirteen Inches Thirteen inches of glorious silver fed into an elegant silver hilt from the blood and tissue that clung to its tip. Its wielder had been nimble and precise, nearly dancing to avoid a flurry of potentially lethal cuts and jabs. Theo's longsword sang as it fell to the stone below. “Shit..” He barely had the air for the words, and his coughs were misty and warm. He glanced down to inspect the damage. “It's not your fault, Ald. Know that.” He fell to one knee, hacking and spitting. His knuckles whitened as he pressed a fist tightly against the cold rock. He laughed weakly. “Damn.” As Theo collapsed, Aldranin's mental state shifted quickly. He shook his head and refocused his eyes, gazing down at his older brother. “Theo?” he whispered. He dropped down and turned Theo's body, evaluating the wound. The shape of the lethal incision looked disturbingly familiar. Aldranin lifted his right hand to the wound, as he still tightly gripped his silver dagger. His jaw dropped, but no air escaped his lips. He couldn't believe his eyes – he had killed his brother. From the Depths Aldranin woke with a splitting headache and sore eyes. He remembered that he had killed his brother before losing consciousness, but the reason eluded him. As he focused and tried to remember why he and his brother were fighting, Aldranin realized that there were many things he had forgotten, the most pressing of which was the answer to an important question: “Where am I?” He scanned the area quickly, and immediately learned three things. First, he was in a cave. Second, he was behind a massive, energetic waterfall. Finally, someone lived there, although he had no idea whom it was. The last bit he deduced from the bed in the corner, which is where he decided he would investigate when the feeling in his legs returned. Aldranin slowly rose to his feet and found that his balance was quickly coming back to him. He still had his fingers wrapped tightly around his blade, so he wiped it on his tattered brown pants and sheathed it quickly. “Ow,” he said, opening and closing his gloved hand – his fingers felt stiff, as if he had been carrying a heavy bag for a long time. Yawning, he stumbled toward the dresser next to the bed, hoping he could find some hint as to what had brought him to his brother. They had not spoken since their mother vanished six months ago. Theo was convinced that she would never leave them without saying good-bye, and had gone in search of her. Aldranin was not as convinced as his older brother; their mother had always seemed tired, and spoke often of traveling the world in search of cities. They didn't exist, however, and hadn't for eighty years. His mother had so much faith in humanity. She swore it would recover. She was certain that order would be restored and people would embrace the old ways, of which her grandmother told so many exciting stories. It had not, and they had not. Bombs had peppered the sky that day. Every city larger than five hundred people had been eradicated within three hours. All major utilities were gone in two days. For many years, people lived below ground, and left only to steal food and supplies from the surface. Eventually people returned to the sunlight, but the world was not what it once had been. Almost everyone learned to stay away from each other – those who did not were often robbed and murdered. Humanity had been reduced to its basest form. That was almost ninety years ago, long before Aldranin was born. He had enjoyed stories of the old world as a boy, but as a man he found them irrelevant. That time had long passed, and the landscape of his time was all that mattered – barren plains for miles were his reality. Aside from trading centers and gang camps, society had dissolved across the world. But his mother never stopped believing that one day, things would “return to normal.” “Return to normal,” he mused, glancing at his brother's corpse and shaking his head. He always snickered when his mother said that – she prayed for life to return to a state of normalcy that she had never known personally. Aldranin questioned whether his world was any worse than the world that his mother longed for so deeply. He flung open each drawer and examined it quickly. Clothes. Aldranin frowned. He didn't want to have to search his brother. As he shifted his brother's body, Aldranin noticed that it was already fairly stiff. He wondered how long he had been out. Nothing but the basics, it seemed: plenty of fresh water, skinning knife, flint. He quit trying for clues and stood up, wiping his eyes, but not because he was sad; he was never one to be emotional, even in the most trying circumstance. The smell was repulsive. He had no idea how he had missed the smell, except that perhaps his proximity to it during his nap had desensitized him. His curiosity intensified – he hadn't noticed before, but his brother's eyes were fairly sunken and his skin was quite discolored. However, the sunlight cutting through the water didn't seem much brighter or dimmer than when he had lost consciousness. Could it really have been a whole day since he killed his brother? He looked around for anything he had neglected, but there was no evidence to be found. With a final look at his brother, he swiftly departed. {:} Three hours had passed since Aldranin left the cave. His surroundings had not helped him decipher the secret of his location. Trees stretched in all directions, crashing against the walls of high mountains. Stars now dotted the sky and he was hoping to find a good tree to sleep in. He eventually discovered something adequate and slowed his mount to a trot. He hopped off of the creature and tied it to a tree. The beast that was called a horse had changed a great deal from the horses of the old world; many surface creatures – at least those that survived – had evolved dramatically in the decades following the bombs. Horses had grown extremely long, thick hair that protected them, to an extent, from the radiation. Over the years, they had become larger and more muscular, with sharp teeth that were more suited to hunting. For many years, plant life had been hard to come by. It was only within the last couple decades that herbavority had again become a realistic attribute for large animals. Aldranin untied the side bag on his horse's right flank and pulled out some thin blankets. He began to move toward the tree he had spotted. Footsteps. Running. Aldranin quickly ducked forward and spun to his left, barely allowing the steel bat to clear the back of his head. He felt his shaggy black hair brushed forward as he evaded the hit. More footsteps, two pairs. Thinking quickly, Aldranin charged after the man who had just attacked him and leapt into the air. His attacker turned, ready for the counter, the tail of his gray cloak billowing as he swung hard for the torso. “Too slow,” Aldranin said as he landed knees-first on the chest of his attacker. Before they hit the ground together, he had freed his dagger and brought it through the stranger's throat. The stranger fell quite hard, choking and gargling blood, as the weight of Aldranin's body came down on him. In their younger years, Theo and Aldranin had always practiced fighting together. Aldranin had only killed one man before his brother, but he was a spectacular hunter and something of an acrobat. While Theo had always been the stronger of them, he was not the better brawler – his younger brother was just a natural. Aldranin rolled across his kill and spun to catch the next attacker. He had barely faced his new opponent when the next swing came. Instinctively, he threw his arm up, dagger pointed down his forearm, and deflected the weapon – another bat – to his left, and hopped to the right. The attacker stumbled into the path of his living ally, causing some confusion, and Aldranin took the opportunity without hesitation. He darted by the two men as the third attacker's vision was obscured by the stumbling form of his companion. It was a moment before the third attacker realized that the left side of his neck had been sliced deeply. The final surviving attacker, furious, turned to face Aldranin in time to see a dagger flying towards his head, and threw up his arms in defense. As soon as the clang of the hit sounded, he dropped his guard and started to charge – just in time to greet Aldranin's calloused heels with his forehead as the acrobat delivered a brutal dropkick. {:} The attacker awoke hanging by his feet. His face was sore from being slapped until he woke up, and he had a splitting headache. “Name,” Aldranin demanded. “Fuck you,” the stranger replied. He tried to spit at his captor's face and quickly discovered the difficulty of doing so while upside-down. “Name.” “Eat sh -,” began the stranger, but he was interrupted by the crack of Aldranin's forearm against his jaw. “Marcus, my name is Marcus,” he conceded, spitting blood. “Why did you try to kill me?” Aldranin continued. “We're just horse thieves.” Again came a hard forearm to the jaw. “Next time, I'm using the bat.” “Okay, stop,” he said, coughing and feeling dizzy. “We're from Tryln, man. We were supposed to kill you after you left Lee's home.” “Who is Lee, and what is Tryln?” Aldranin was becoming more confused, rather than less so. “Lee is just Lee, man. He lived behind the waterfall.” Lee? That was Theo. That was his big brother. Despite being a bit disoriented by the name, Aldranin kept his composure. “And Tryln?” “Tryln? You don't know? It's the city, three days east of here, past the mountains.” Aldranin's eyes widened visibly. “City?” “What're you going to do with me?” asked Marcus. “Haven't decided yet. How do I get to this city? How long has it been there? I'm asking the questions, right now.” “From here?” The assassin looked around for a second before he realized the Sun was long set. “When the sun comes up tomorrow, face it, then turn to your eleven o'clock and head in that direction. You shouldn't miss it. Please let me down from here.” “How long has it been there?” Aldranin repeated. “I don't know man, I moved there two years ago.” Two years? It didn't seem possible. How could he have been so close to a city for so long without knowing it? Then it hit him. “How far from the Great Gulf are we?” “Man, I don't know. Two weeks on a horse?” Aldranin was speechless. He was two weeks from home with no clues as to how he got there, let alone where exactly 'there' was. He stepped away from Marcus and sat against a tree for a few minutes before he spoke again. “I'm going to sleep, now. We'll talk in the morning if the animals haven't eaten you.” “Come on, man, you can't leave me hanging here like this.” “Actually, I can, and I am.” Aldranin stood and grabbed his blankets off the ground and slung them over his shoulder, then began to climb a nearby tree. When he found a thick, comfortable branch, he laid one blanket across it and covered his body with the other. “Goodnight, Marcus. Don't go anywhere, I may have more questions for you tomorrow. If you see anything dangerous, give a shout – you might be able to scare it away.” “That's not funny,” replied the assassin. {:} Marcus panicked as he felt his body come down on his head and reoriented himself quickly, trying to figure out what had just happened. He looked up to see Aldranin sheathing his dagger and realized that he had been cut down. “Get up, time to move,” the hunter ordered. “Where did you tie your mounts?” “You need to learn to how to wake people up,” replied Marcus, rubbing his head. “Not far from here. Are you... freeing me?” Aldranin laughed. “No. You're taking me to the city. Or, you're taking me toward the city until I kill you. I've still gotta make up my mind.” Aldranin mounted his horse, which was already untied and prepared for the road. Marcus frowned and shakily climbed to his feet, dizzy and numb from the improper distribution of blood in his body. He noticed that Aldranin had tied the bats to his horse. Bats were a fairly popular weapon, mainly because of their availability. After the bombs fell, people stopped playing sports, which meant nice bats collected dust in the warehouses and shops that survived 'the rebirth.' Quality weapons – swords, daggers, and guns – were much rarer and harder to come by. And nothing was quite as effective as a bat in the hands of a novice. “Well, lead the way,” Aldranin prompted. Marcus brushed himself off and reluctantly began to walk in the direction of his mounts. {:} Tara touched the shirt as it fluttered on the line and rubbed her fingers together. Still damp. She wrinkled her chin and pressed her thin cracked lips against each other, rubbing the sweat off her forehead with her sleeve. It was humid out; drying the clothes was taking longer than she expected. She strolled back to her home, a cozy little place on the southern edge of Tryln. Tryln was not as she had hoped. A far cry from the cities of the past, Tryln was a trading post that had grown out of hand. The climate was comfortable, the river was cleaned naturally by the rocky white water to the north, and it was relatively safe – the town looked down on the surrounding landscape, proving good visibility for its residents. Docility was a fairly uncommon trait in the creatures of the surface, human or animal, and the ability to spot danger from a distance was an important key to survival. Tara was uncomfortable in the city. She missed her home near the gulf. She missed having something to eat aside from fish and apples (round, juicy fruits that were somewhat hairy and gray on the outside, but quite tough on the inside). She missed her brother, who decided to remain in the South to take care of her mother. But she mostly missed her space. The city was a crowded place, relative to the world into which she was born. In the South, there were small forests where she would collect berries as her brother hunted, and if she rode ten miles in any direction she could be confident that she would not be stepping on anyone's toes. In the city there was a home every quarter mile, and, without law to guide them, people could be dangerously protective of their properties. It was not the place of fairy tales. It was too late to go home, however. Her horse had died shortly after she arrived in town, presumably of malnourishment, and the only foods that she was capable of obtaining without him were fruits and fish. Even if she was only a month's walk from home – which she doubted – she questioned her own ability to bring enough food for the trip that would keep for such a long time. She had briefly considered selling her body for a mount, but feared that she would be unbearably disappointed in herself if she had to resort to such measures. The guts slid out easily onto the table, and she brushed them into a small wooden basket that she had made for her trash. She lifted the empty, headless fish by the tail and dropped it into a metal pan that she had traded for in the city, beginning to cook it slowly over the fire in the center of her small home. Looters brought back the wildest tools from the broken ghost towns of the old world; she had never had a fish so delicious as the first she had cooked in that frying pan. The novelty had quickly vanished, of course, when she realized that all she would cook in that pan was fish. She often wondered what other meats would taste delicious if she could get her hands on them, but knew that it was unlikely she would find out. Everyone in the city had fish, and no one was willing to trade whole land mammals for it. Fish was too easy to come by, and surface animals were simply too hostile to be traded cheaply. Someday, she told herself, she would find a way home. Things could be good again. She refused to accept that she would waste away alone in those hills. She just needed an opportunity. {:} “Got a riddle for you, Tim,” muttered the dark-skinned woman, right eye closed, left eye focused through two thick glass lenses. “Yea?” he replied, half-asleep, his back against the wall of the old office building. “Three altras are on a hill. You shoot one. How many altras you got left?” Altras were probably the biggest threat to humans on the surface. So called because they were considered to be radioactively altered humans, 'altras' were stronger, faster, larger, and fiercer than humans, with thick, tough skin that was covered in dense gray hair. An altra's teeth and nails were sharp, perfect for tearing and eating raw flesh – and it used them. Despite the fact that most knew how to speak a broken, raspy, dental form of English, they had no desire to communicate with old humans. To altras, men and women were simply another delicious surface creature. “I don't know, babe. Zero?” He was mumbling groggily, half-dressed and trying to sleep after a long night with his lovely partner. As soon as Tim finished his sentence, he was roused by the deafening boom by which Sara's fifty caliber made its existence known. A half-second later, Sara smiled as her target's neck and shoulder exploded in a satisfying mist of blood, bone and tissue. It dropped to the ground, thrashing wildly as it bled out, and its allies wisely scattered when they realized what had happened. “SON OF A BITCH!” Tim exclaimed, sitting upright. “What the fuck was that for, Sara?” She giggled playfully. “Just having some fun. I hit it on the right side of its collarbone!” “Wow, good shot,” he said, instantly too impressed to be upset. He tossed his covers aside and dramatically dragged himself across the floor to Sara's post. “Let me see.” She handed him the rifle and he looked through the scope. “Holy shit, Sara, you destroyed him.” He always referred to altras by their genders, but Sara's pronoun choice was much more common – people simply didn't want to view altras as mutated human cannibals. It was just easier to believe that they were some lower life form. Killing inhuman monsters felt less dirty, and it was easier to watch a friend be devoured by a soulless animal than by a hairy man or woman. Tim didn't have any sympathy for altras, however – they had taken as much from him as from anyone, and he was perfectly content massacring as many as he could find. He considered altras to be human, but that didn't mean he considered them any less vile and repulsive. “Dumbshit...” Tim whispered, breathing slowly and becoming more focused. A 'dumbshit' was his term for an altra that was trying to escape but too stupid to find cover. Altras were much faster than humans though. Shooting a runner took patience and expertise, especially from this distance. “What are they, about a half-second off?” Tim deftly guessed. “Yea,” Sara responded quietly, trying to answer without being too distracting. Slowly he squeezed the rifle's trigger. A shot roared out, and a moment later tore into the dirt just behind the fleeing altra. “Almost, lead him a little more,” Sara said, thinking aloud. “I know... This one's for you, beautiful." Tim spoke slowly and softly. Holding his breath, he squeezed off another round. In a glorious blast of red against the green grass of the hillside, the bullet tore through the creature's lower spine, almost splitting it in half at the middle. The creature's torso folded toward its knees like a lawn chair and its body tumbled limply before sliding to a stop. “Oh. My. God,” Sara said slowly. “I wanna see!” She grabbed the gun from her partner and inspected the damage through the scope. The creature's upper and lower halves appeared to be stacked on one another. “Incredible. That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever done for me.” She blushed, as that wasn't far from the truth, and looked over at Tim. “Thank you,” she said, and leaned toward him to plant a soft kiss on his lips. “Anytime,” he said. He opened his eyes and glanced around. “So, anyway... we should probably get out of here after all that racket.” Sara, gazing at Tim through the most adoring eyes, nodded her agreement and pushed herself to her feet to begin packing up their equipment, and Tim rapidly disassembled the rifle and placed it carefully in its case. Sara slid the ammo pack to him from the bed, and he slung it over his back. By the time he was ready to move, Sara had just finished bagging the bedsheets and canteens. They quickly checked the room to make sure nothing had been forgotten, then slipped casually out of the building and into the streets. {:} Marcus finished tying the two excess mounts to his horse and hopped onto it. “I can't believe we're bringing these fucking things. You're not going to find anything in the city worth selling them for – they'll just have food and useless supplies like any trading post.” Aldranin ignored Marcus' whining. “I've been thinking. Why did you try to kill me? What were you offered that was worth taking a stranger's life, or losing yours?” He wasn't upset, simply curious. There was no longer any currency on the surface. Just food, equipment and weapons. Marcus remained quiet for a moment, apparently reluctant to answer the question. “Look, Marcus, let me clear something up: I really will kill you. You should know that. I honestly don't care.” “Alright, alright. It was my initiation. I don't know anything else.” He kicked his mount softly and it started to trot. Aldranin prompted his mount to follow. “Initiation for what?” “The Riders. The head gang in Tryln. They have a lot of influence in this area.” Aldranin paused for a second, but couldn't remember hearing anything about 'The Riders.' “So these 'Riders' just asked you to come to this particular forest, in this exact mountain range, and kill the man who took out Lee?” “Not exactly. I don't even know who Lee is. Me and my brothers were shown a map...” “Those were your brothers?” Aldranin interrupted. “My gang brothers. No relation.” Aldranin was a bit relieved. He didn't want to be traveling with someone who was waiting for the perfect time to avenge his family. “Anyway, the map marked the location of Lee's home behind the waterfall here. Our boss told us to come here and kill whoever came out of Lee's waterfall, because that man had been sent to assassinate Lee.” Aldranin frowned and thought for a minute. It seemed that Marcus hadn't confused Theo's name; rather, Marcus confused who lived behind the waterfall. “What's your boss's name?” “I don't know,” Marcus began. “He calls himself Nero, but I don't think that's his real name.” Aldranin considered the name. It seemed oddly familiar to him, but he couldn't put a finger on where he had heard it. His mind began to wander. His mother? Perhaps. “Is, uh... that all?” Marcus prodded, confused by Aldranin's sudden silence. “Stop talking.” {:} Tim rode up on the slain altras and tugged at his horse's reins. It quickly stopped in its tracks, and Sara's mount skidded to a stop behind him. “I'm always surprised at how bad these things smell,” Tim said as he dismounted gracefully. He approached Sara's victim and knelt beside it. A small satchel hung around the creature's neck (if it could still be called a 'neck'). Tim smoothly flipped it open and examined the contents. He quickly began tossing items at Sara, who was already preparing space for them in one of their backpacks. “Canteen... canteen... canteen,” he announced as he threw his discoveries at Sara one at a time. “Dagger – a nice one... skinning knife... oh, nice, a lighter!” He tried to ignite the fluid, and, to his surprise, it still worked. He wondered if the creatures had refilled it on their own. “Ha, here we go... nine millimeter... clip... clip... I think that's it.” Altras had the weapons market on lockdown. They had spent quite some time on the surface before the humans had returned from the depths, and consequently had quite some time to plunder the formerly populous cities of the surface. After the rebirth, guns and ammunition were the first things to vanish from the shelves of shops and warehouses. Needless to say, the opportunity to loot an altra wasn't usually passed up. “I got a 9-mil over here, too,” Sara replied, stuffing the last of the weapons in the backpack. “Let's head back. I don't wanna wait for these big fuckers to bring reinforcements.” {||} Bart watched intently from a distance as the two humans rode away. His pale yellow eyes glowed faintly, bathed in the light of the moon as it began to rise. “We'll stick to the hills for cover. Night's coming soon, it shouldn't be hard for us to stay out of sight.” He motioned at his brothers to follow and took off after the humans. {:} “Hold,” Aldranin whispered loudly. Marcus stopped his horse and glanced over his shoulder. They had made good time so far, and were now headed north for a pass through the mountains. “What's up?” he asked quietly. “Altras,” Aldranin replied. Marcus hadn't yet noticed, but his captor's eyes seemed to give off a light of their own in the rapidly approaching darkness. “An evolve,” Marcus accidentally noted out loud as he examined Aldranin's piercing green eyes as they shone through his long, unkempt dark locks. “Yeah,” Aldranin replied casually. It was no wonder he had fought so well in the dark. Even in the faintest moonlight, he could see as clearly as an altra. “How many?” Marcus squinted and stared ahead in an attempt to locate the creatures. “Six, unless they are hiding. I doubt they expected us to see them.” “Where?” Silence. Marcus looked back and realized that Aldranin had vanished. “Hello?” He wanted to call out Aldranin's name, but didn't know it. “Keep riding.” Aldranin's voice seemed to come from the trees. Marcus obeyed, kicking his horse into a slow trot. Moments later, the quiet of the forest was broken by a loud gunshot. Marcus panicked and dropped from his mount, crawling across the foliage and backing against a tree. He heard an altra screech – a uniquely horrible noise – followed by two more gunshots, then silence. “Oh fuck, oh fuck,” he panted. An altra was not a pleasant creature to cross without a gun. Leaves and dirt burst into the air as a massive hairy humanoid hit the ground in front of Marcus. “Shit!” he shouted, scurrying away from the body on his hands and knees. He was looking over his shoulder when he ran into something bony, covered in hair. Marcus didn't have time to look up at the altra before it had wrapped its huge clawed hand around his neck, lifting him easily off the ground. It slammed him against a nearby tree violently, leaving him dizzy and winded. He tried to shout, but he couldn't catch his breath. He hopelessly flailed at the altra in an attempt to free himself as the creature's knife-like nails began to dig into his throat. {:} “Are you asleep?” Tim spoke softly into Sara's ear, stroking her back delicately as half her body was draped across his. “Not anymore,” she replied jokingly. She looked up at him and smiled. “I thought I heard something, I'm gonna check it out.” He kissed her quickly. “Mind if I sneak out from under you?” “Baby, you're just having nightmares again. There's nobody here.” She was right; he was tormented by bad dreams nightly, and this night had proven itself to be no different. Always the same dream – his mother and father murdered and devoured by altras before his eyes. But the fact remained: he had heard something. “Let me just check it out. I'll sleep better.” Tim slipped out from under Sara and moved his pillow beneath her head as a substitute for his shoulder. “I'll be right back.” He kissed her cheek and climbed out of bed, throwing on his pants and shirt before standing up. “Be careful,” she said, all too aware of the dangers that came with venturing out alone, particularly at night. “Always.” He clipped his holster around his waste and slipped out of the room into the hotel's hallway. Rubbing his eyes with his fist, he moved to the stairwell and began to descend the eight levels to the ground floor. Higher ground was safer ground. Altras – and most other dangerous creatures, for that matter – tended to stick close to the surface. The old hotel was almost a fort, with several exits and a few untested defensive constructs. Additionally, no glass remained in the windows of the hotel. This had several notable implications, the most relevant of which was the ability to hear loud noises from several floors away. As Tim made his way down the stairs, he heard another crash. It was much louder from his new position. Looters, perhaps, inspecting the apartments. He slowly opened the door to the fifth floor with one hand, and, holding his cocked pistol in the other, peered out into the hallway. Two altras, each a solid eight feet tall, were moving away from his stairwell. One kicked in another door, and the second rolled into the room pistol-first. It was intelligent, methodical, unusual behavior for an altra. Carefully taking aim, Tim waited for the second altra to return from inspecting the room. Unfortunately, his plan was interrupted by a crash above him. More altras were moving up the building via the other stairwells. “Sara!” Thinking quickly, he squeezed off two shots in rapid succession at the altra in the hallway. The first bullet ripped through its neck, and the second caught it in the chest as it fell spinning. He ignored the fallen altra and focused intently on the open door thirty feet down the hall. Carefully regulating his breathing, he awaited the second altra's response. Sara slept so heavily. He had to get to her before the altras. The door above him creaked as it was opened slowly. The gunshot must have been audible on the floor above him. Reacting on instinct, Tim threw his door open so that the sound of it slamming would be delayed as he retreated up the stairs. He leaned around the bend in the stairwell and fired three rounds into the investigating altra's chest before it realized what had happened. Tim couldn't wait for the second altra from the fifth floor to pursue him. He began to sprint up the stairs toward room 816, where Sara slept soundly. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” he said as he ran. He had a tendency to talk to himself in urgent situations. {||} The door to room 815 was nearly torn from its hinges at the force of Bart's calloused, hairy foot. Sean pivoted into the room and looked around, gun drawn. “Clear,” he announced in a deep, raspy grunt. Bart immediately moved to room 816. Sean quickly caught up and put his back against the wall beside the door. Bart stepped back, then delivered a hard kick to the door next to its handle. Half-asleep and half-naked, the woman inside sat up suddenly as the door cracked and swung loudly into her room. Bart quickly took aim, but was interrupted by a startling flurry of bullets from his left. He saw blood and hair but felt no pain, and realized that Sean had been hit first. Glancing to his left, Bart saw Tim walking steadily toward them, gun drawn. {:} Tim kept moving as he let bullets fly into the falling altra's body, but before he could put any into Bart, the huge creature rolled into his room. He took off down the hallway and slid up to his door just in time to fire a couple shots after the fleeing altra as it dove out the eighth story window. He immediately forgot the altra and searched the room. Where was Sara? “Tim!” she shouted from the closet, jumping into his arms and kissing him repeatedly. “Thank God, I was so scared,” he whispered, hugging her tightly. “We need to get the fuck outta here. There are like fifty fucking altras downstairs.” She laughed at his exaggeration. “Yeah, let's move.” |
| This book is currently empty. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
