Night 51: Recreational Field

[notstealing]

[From here.]

When Locke opened the door, he was greeted by a rush of fresh air-something entirely unexpected, on his part. It was too easy, wasn't it? When he looked around, all he saw was a field, a shed, and walls that blocked him from being home free. Lucky me, he thought to himself, as he looked around the surroundings. So far, he'd managed to

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[unheroed]

Seeing how they were out in the middle of nowhere, light pollution wasn't really a problem. The stars had been bright and visible, but now it was suddenly as if a huge storm cloud had come to hang in low over their heads and snuff out all of that light. It was as if they were in a pitch black room rather than outside, where they should have been able to see something by the light of the moon.

But all they had was his flashlight, which was only reaching as far as the grass about ten feet in front of them; not even far enough to see to the wall that they were supposed to be climbing. Combining that with the heavy feeling, and Harvey had the distinct sensation that they might be walking into something dangerous.

When he caught a child's feet racing across the wet grass ahead of them, he didn't feel concern, but a spike of fear that he really could only associate with a creepy horror movie: the sort of thing that wasn't supposed to happen in real life. Something wasn't right.

Even as he used his flashlight to try and follow the child's path, he didn't see anything. Frowning, he put an arm up to hold across Jones' chest, wanting to stop him from heading after the footsteps. "Is it just me, or does it feel like we're about to walk into a trap?" For once, his lack of compassion might be coming in handy. Kid or no kid, he wasn't just going to blindly follow.

[deathrattling]

It was a good question, but it was one that had arrived too late. The trap had been set, tripped, and sprung the moment the two men had entered the field, the encroaching darkness already obscuring the walls they sought and snapping at their heels, threatening to enclose even the beams of light by which they found their way. The silence continued after both men's voices, swallowing up their words without resonance.

Then, again -- the rustle of grass as if a pair of small feet were running through it. This time it came from behind them, quick rapid thuds that pattered into earshot and then out, almost faster than a normal human child could run.

As soon as they faded, something else crossed their path. This time, however, it stayed: a black cat, unblinking eyes luminous in the night, that turned its head to watch them as they approached.

[its_the_mileage]

Indy hadn't been planning on chasing after the kid (the ones here seemed to be old enough to take care of themselves, even if running around barefoot was a bad idea), but when Dent's arm went out in front of him he stopped looking in that direction and turned back toward the other man anyway. He was right. "It's not just you," Indy agreed grimly. That sense he'd had--the sudden pitch darkness, the repressive stillness--it didn't just feel like paranoia anymore. Instinct was telling him something was indeed badly wrong here.

He whipped around at the quiet rustle behind them but couldn't see anything. The kid again? No, too light and fast to have been another patient, he was almost sure. Unless the kid was a future track star. Indy quietly uncoiled the dog leash from his shoulder and let it drop into his right hand. With the other hand he tipped the brim of his fedora up just slightly, clearing his field of vision for whatever was coming.

It turned out to be a cat--a black cat. Indy tensed. Could be one of the Sun Room cats had gotten out, but he'd never seen one of them around at night before. You didn't need to be superstitious to know that a black cat crossing your path could be more trouble than it looked in here. It was between them and the wall.

Indy started calculating the distance between them and that wall, and again between them and the door. It was hard to do when it was too dark to make out either endpoint; it'd never occurred to him to count paces across the field before. He thought they were closer to the far side than to the entrance to the building by now, but he couldn't be sure. Either way, he wasn't taking chances. "Get ready to run," he muttered to Dent. Then he lashed out with the makeshift whip--aiming carefully not to hit the cat, but to swing within several feet of it, what he figured was close enough to startle it away if it was a normal animal.

[unheroed]

Good, so he wasn't just being paranoid. At that affirmation from Jones, Harvey allowed himself to slip his gun out of the elastic of his pants, readying it in his hand in case something came out at them suddenly from the dark. He didn't think he was too twitchy with his trigger finger, so he was only going to fire the thing off if absolutely necessary.

He also quickly turned around when the sound came from behind them, but there was nothing to be seen. This whole thing was growing more and more unsettling by the second, but overreacting wasn't going to get them anywhere.

But when he glanced forward again, there was something visible, if just only. A black cat, and that made it feel like this was a practical joke waiting to happen. That was the oldest superstition in the book, wasn't it? He frowned, not willing to be made a fool of. And he wasn't shooting a damn cat. Wasn't the thing supposed to be all mutated and mangy right now, anyway?

Though Jones gave him a quick warning, and Harvey found himself preparing in spite of himself. He didn't like this whole running thing very much, but he had to admit that sticking around to see what showed up next didn't seem like it would work any better. The second that he heard Jones' pet leash (he still couldn't get over how ridiculous that was) smack against the ground, he took off in the direction of the wall. He didn't know if there was a way to outrun the weird feeling, but they might as well try.

[deathrattling]

The cat leapt nimbly away from the leash, melding into the blackness of the surrounding air with ease. Its eyes flashed once from beyond the ring of the flashlight's range, and then white, pointed teeth gleamed as it opened its mouth in a yowl --

But it was no yowl a cat had ever made before. Earsplitting in volume and agonizing in pitch, it extended well past the length of a normal animal's breath and didn't stop even then. The cat itself vanished out of sight as the two men took off running and the beam of light left it, but the screech followed them as they went.

The source of it changed, however -- and if either man happened to glance to his left or right, they would see the small child who followed them apace despite their longer legs, mouth gaping open as he yowled alongside.

[its_the_mileage]

The cat moved the way Indy thought it should've, and without waiting to watch it do anything else, he took off running alongside Dent. He'd only gotten a few paces when the noise started. It was like the screech over the intercom last night, similarly high-pitched and deafening--and painful. Indy ducked his head and threw his arms up over it as he tried to keep running, clapping his wrists over his hat to hold it on and pressing his leather-covered arms hard against his ears to try to block out the howling. It didn't do much good. "I hope this isn't going to become a trend!" he shouted at the top of his lungs to Dent, but he could barely hear himself over the din.

The volume and the pain both made it hard to think. Was the cat making that noise? It'd sounded like a cat at first (please, don't be that girl from last night, Indy prayed to himself; this was one case where he didn't buy into the-devil-you-know), but as they got closer to the wall his gaze hit on the movement next to him--a kid, or kid-sized person, with his mouth wide open and screaming. "Hell of a temper tantrum," Indy muttered to himself through gritted teeth, trying to keep himself sane. He'd wonder where the kid's parents were, but it was obvious even to him that that was no ordinary child.

He didn't know how to stop it (or fight it?), though, so he was just hoping he and Dent could make it out of the kid's range before their eardrums started hemorrhaging. Bracing himself, he took one arm away from his ear to shove his flashlight in his jacket pocket and reach it out toward the wall, waiting to feel his fingers hit the brick.

[unheroed]

At first Harvey had been wondering if they would be lucky enough to be able to outrun whatever was bothering them -- it wasn't just the cat, it was more than that; he just didn't know what -- but that had been far too naive of a thought. He'd only run maybe ten feet before his eardrums were once again assaulted by a terrible noise that seemed to pierce right into the part of his hearing that caused intense pain.

Dammit, what was it about trying to wreck their hearing lately? He grit his teeth (he could deal with pain; he dealt with it all the time and he would now, just the same) and kept on moving, glad to see that Jones was managing to keep up. He didn't really think that now was the time for quips and comments, and so he didn't give the other man much of a response. All he wanted to do now was get as far away from this nightmare as possible.

The lights still hadn't come back on, so to speak, and he wondered if there was even a way to shake all of it off. Though when he caught Jones looking at something, Harvey had to follow his gaze, causing him to see something he really would rather not have seen. That kid was clearly not your average runt, if the way he was keeping up with them and screaming nonstop, like some sort of tortured animal, was any indication.

Honestly, Harvey just wanted to get away from it, from all of it. And so he kept running until he almost ran into the wall. He skidded to a stop and laid his hands against the concrete. Good. They were almost past this, or so he hoped.

[deathrattling]

[OH GOD I AM SO, SO SORRY FOR THE LATENESS OF THIS. /)_(\ You guys are welcome to escape after this tag!]

The boy's footsteps thudded louder and louder in the still night, grass smashing underneath his small feet until each step sounded a rapid heartbeat under the endless yowl. As the patients reached the wall and began to climb, the child, too, reached a hand out and grabbed onto the brick.

But rather than having to search for a handhold, he seemed instead to warp: his spine arched out in a grotesque curve and both feet latched onto the wall along. One hand over another, he crawled up the wall after them as if it were flat ground.

The only indication that he was moving up a straight incline was his hair, which trailed out behind him -- growing longer even as his body wrenched its way up the wall, the yowl stuttering into a guttural rattle and his black-hole eyes following their movements.

[its_the_mileage]

Indy reached the wall at the same moment as Dent. He was delayed in starting the climb by the need to bring his other arm down from his head and stow his gear--whip back over the shoulder, machete in its case secured to the whip by the metal clip. It left the machete dangling awkwardly near his belt and his ears ringing, but it was good enough to let him make the ascent.

Without looking back for the kid, the cat or the damned Boogeyman, Indy found his first handholds and started to climb. His burned left arm hurt like hell with the effort. This time he didn't waste effort in swearing or cracking jokes, just focused doggedly on planting one foot on the wall. Then the next. Then--this was the tricky part--letting go with his right hand-- "Whoa!" he gasped as his left arm threatened to buckle and he replanted his hand just in time to avoid falling. He took a breath. So far, so good, Jones. Left arm. Right foot. Left foot.

It wasn't until his right hand hit the upper edge of the wall that Indy realized the godawful howling noise had shorted out somewhere along the way. Small favors. He pulled himself up to the top and turned back to extend a hand to Dent, ready to jump down on the far side as soon as the other man was up. The kid--no, the thing was at the edge of his vision; eyes widened, he tried to ignore it and focus on Dent's progress. Their best hope was that it wouldn't follow them outside the Institute's grounds.

[unheroed]

Also having to do a bit of shuffling before he could climb the wall, Harvey shoved his flashlight into his free coat pocket and made sure that his gun was secure in his waistband before he followed after Jones. It occurred to him, in the back of his mind, that he could have tried to shoot the kid that was following them, and yet he got the feeling that it wouldn't do much good. Not when the boy hardly seemed human.

It was... climbing after them. Like it was some sort of insect rather than a human boy -- and the screaming wasn't stopping. Harvey tensed and tried his best to ignore it, knowing that watching the thing's progress would only delay their escape. But would they actually be out of danger when they got over the wall? Well, there was only one way to find out.

Jones made it up much faster than him, probably because he was used to this sort of thing, and also because he wasn't fighting so much pain. Harvey took the man's hand, trying to put as much of his own strength into getting up, so as to not to accidentally pull Jones back down with him. In the end they managed it, and he got onto the top of the wall.

The screaming was still there.

Drowning it out, Harvey forced himself over the wall, just wanting it to stop already.

[To here.]