When he first sees the face on the other end of the hall, he almost thinks he's hallucinating. But it couldn't be. His mind was clear and that was his goal, just a hundred yards away. Unfortunately eighty of those yards sunk down into black nothingness
( ... )
It feels like something releases its grip on her throat when they appear, and she steps forward to her crumbling edge with a broken smile. "Hey," she calls back, all fondness and absent any bravado or feigned nonchalance. It's a real shame that the finer details of her are lost to distance and the weakness of the light. She looks at him with a glow of pride, warm and undisguised as though there weren't two others privy to the scene
( ... )
He's still gaping at Lynn's reappearance. Troy honestly hadn't expected to see her alive again, much less capable of moving on her own. That gun's still an absolute monument to retardation, in his opinion. But hey, he doesn't have experience with extreme paranoia in situations where everything really is out to get you. So he'll defer his opinions on that to the two people who have been here before.
He finds he's been doing that more and more. Whereas he'd expected he'd take charge, when he first (no, that wasn't the first, not really) met Eileen, he found her confidence comforting. It wasn't the sort of confidence she'd admit to, but like many women he'd known closely (including his own mother), as long as the focus wasn't on her, she was self-assured. Well, okay, maybe not when those metal things came screeching at them, but who the fuck would be self-assured then? And what sort of idiot must they be
( ... )
Can't fault his skepticism, and she gives a lost shrug. "I don't know. I've seen it move along walls, but..." But there are no guarantees except that she does not have nearly the kind of firepower that could hold it back for more than a couple of seconds, if that, even with the extra ammunition she found lodged behind that broken mirror. And that's assuming that there's anything to the creature that would mind being shot, and assuming further that she'd be able to achieve that mystery target when it's completely cloaked in the total darkness of the tunnel behind them.
"Damn it," she grumbles, running her hands along the slimy edges of the walls, not at all expecting to find a handy 'lower bridge' lever but mentally scrambling for something more productive to do. Partly dried blood on one palm runs wet again mingling with rivulets of filthy gray water. "We're going to be in trouble over here in a minute," she nervously shouts for the benefit of the other side of the gap.
Henry had been watching their conversation. Knowing what Eileen would keep a conversation low for, he had known what they were talking about way before she told him. He stretches out over the gap, as if he could really reach over to her. "Yeah, I gathered...what is it? One of those metal things? Try to get it into the hole, whatever it is. Please...? I don't think it'd reach, but if it does, we'll deal with it. Is there any other direction you can go?"
Catching sight of him reaching out, she feels something constrict, and nods in response to his direction though she has to shoot down one of his ideas. "There's nowhere." Finding nothing along the visible edge, she steps back just beyond the boundary of the light, running her hands frantically along the wall. To her infinite surprise, her palm brushes over a protrusion, one that moves when she nudges it. More surprising still, when she tries pulling at it, she's successful. "I found something! It's falling apart..." Maybe it's wear and tear from the water, poor construction, or damage sometime in its life, but the pebbly brick that winds up in her hand is riddled with spidery cracks and spongy dips. She holds it carefully carrying it back out into the light where she can get a look at it, concerned that it could crumble in her grasp. In spite of the wear, though, she can still clearly make out the only marking it has, carved into one of its broad sides
( ... )
"Uh I don't...." He's been looking around his area since she did, first because he was curious and later to distract him from the numbers on that tape. She was right, it didn't make any sense. 05105? And yet it was too close to ignore. "No, there's no blocks, I don't see anything." He's pressing everywhere he can, and yet, there's no indentations, not protrusions, nothing. It's all as smooth as a piece of paper.
"I don't think there's anything on this side. I'll keep looking..." Just in case. He can hear the thing crashing around behind them, although he can't see anything yet. Damn, they don't have much time.... "Anything else on your end?" he calls, a little louder.
"04105, this one's got an arrow on it," she replies, before setting it aside with the other one. #4, she can't help but notice, is in perfectly fine condition. The next one is predictable by now. "03105!" she shouts, louder now that the noise threatens to drown her out, and sounding more scared by the second. Lynn looks to be of a similar mind, backing away from the edge with terror and memory tightening her grip on the gun. "It's falling apart too!" Like the fifth, this stone looks nearly ready to crumble in Eileen's hands, and after the briefest of inspections under the light she puts it down with the other two. She stares at the three of them, something at the edge of her mind bothering her immensely. And for once, she actually quickly realizes what it is. "The tapes!" At this, Lynn blinks as though startled, just as time runs out
( ... )
Troy is not exactly pleased by this development. He was frantically ducking out of the way, but now it's on its way back. As far as he can tell, nothing hurts these damn things, these spinning machines of twisted spikes and rusted jigsaw teeth.
His mind is only a terrified white noise, but his arm is still working just fine. When it's about to reach them, he steps up and hits it with his crowbar. Wheels fly and metal crumples, but it merely serves to rotate the whole thing, puts it on its side. It punctures his left shoulder- his first thought, before the pain, is that it'll need a tetanus shot. He twists away and scrambles to put distance between him and it, as much as possible. That is, unfortunately, not much in this little hallway.
There's a squeak from the other side of the thing as it's spun by the blow, spines unfurling like a fan without fabric to sweep perilously close to her face, close enough that she feels the disturbed stale air in their wake go slithering across her cheek. She scuttles back like a crab, just enough to be out from under it, before fumbling at her waistline for her gun. The first squeeze of the trigger is a wasted shot, one precious round that passes right in between all the jagged sets of spokes to bury itself in the wall somewhere well above the two people on the other side of the gap. The second glances harmlessly off the edge of one of two elegant red-rusted ill-proportioned fish hooks, and her continued scramble back into the dark saves a leg from being sawed clean off in retaliation. But two more shots seem to at least inconvenience it, striking at the spinning whirring mess of layers towards the center of it. Its rotations shudder each time, jerking it incrementally to the right once, and incrementally back towards the chasm
( ... )
Henry's body is jerking, his arm is reaching out, trying to get over towards Eileen. The chasm is all that stops him, and even then, just barely. He doesn't have anything that could reach over there, not anything. Besides, he doesn't know what he'd do if he could be there. Lynn was scrabbling behind him, frantic. She hadn't been quite this frantic before, and she was on the other side of the danger.
He was focused on the fight in front of them- he couldn't break his focus to look at Lynn. But then she dropped to the ground, and he had to pay attention to her actions. She was brushing away something, something important. These things were always hidden in places like these. It was writing. Henry reads it aloud:
Lynn's face goes unnaturally blank as the words are revealed, but then she seems to start and return to herself, her face twisting into something stricken. "I... I said things... and then..." The girl's voice rattles from disuse. "She knows my videos...? It was on one. I taped it, a-and then, they wouldn't erase. None of them would. They wouldn't let me..." She takes on an edge, the bitterest kind of determination as she stares across the way at the crown of blades and stones on the ground near its anchoring. "Near the end. The fourth one."
In the dark of the passageway, Eileen's presence is reduced to sound only. Agonized moans after the last scream and a wet impact, the rustle of fabric rolling over grit and debris, breaths drawn too harshly and too quickly. Then a gasp of effort, the scrape of an outstretched arm flung out along the floor, and the clattering of a handgun over broken tile that comes to rest near his feet.
Troy has a great deal less experience than Eileen with using a weapon, but he scrambles to pick up the gun when it slides on the floor. If he could hear Lynn, he'd know what she was talking about, but right now he's a bit busy trying not to die. He'd like it if Eileen didn't either, and both of those reasons are why he pulled the trigger.
He fired rather wildly, but one of bullets in the clip he empties actually hits a part of the mark that's not metal. This particular shot seems to have be particularly successful, as the monster rears back. It immediately spins out with something sharper, but then it twitches again. Every twiisted spike of metal on the creature gleams in the sick, low light.
When the barbs and wheels abruptly reverse their direction, Lynn looks genuinely surprised by herself as she instantly reacts. It spins jerkily towards the ledge opposite; she scrambles madly to slap the last clip into place. It launches itself across the gaping divide; she holds out her hands with the gun between them. And it never reaches her; all the shots fired but one miss it entirely, but the lone success disturbs that mad ratcheting spinning, sends pieces crashing into each other, sends the whole damn thing careening squealing down into the abyss.
The gun's components click against each other as its bearer's hands shake. She stares down into the dark in astonishment, and delicately sets the 9mm down on the inscribed floor in front of her.
Henry's eyes widen as the the creature flies at them, and stay that way when Lynn's shots actually seem to stop it. He watches it fall downwards, fade from sight as it continued to click and shift and screech. But it was too far out from either side now- no matter what it did, it couldn't quite reach.
The silence that settled after that was heavy, but Henry had to disturb it. "Eileen? You both okay over there?"
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He finds he's been doing that more and more. Whereas he'd expected he'd take charge, when he first (no, that wasn't the first, not really) met Eileen, he found her confidence comforting. It wasn't the sort of confidence she'd admit to, but like many women he'd known closely (including his own mother), as long as the focus wasn't on her, she was self-assured. Well, okay, maybe not when those metal things came screeching at them, but who the fuck would be self-assured then? And what sort of idiot must they be ( ... )
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"Damn it," she grumbles, running her hands along the slimy edges of the walls, not at all expecting to find a handy 'lower bridge' lever but mentally scrambling for something more productive to do. Partly dried blood on one palm runs wet again mingling with rivulets of filthy gray water. "We're going to be in trouble over here in a minute," she nervously shouts for the benefit of the other side of the gap.
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He hates not being able to reach her.
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"I don't think there's anything on this side. I'll keep looking..." Just in case. He can hear the thing crashing around behind them, although he can't see anything yet. Damn, they don't have much time.... "Anything else on your end?" he calls, a little louder.
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His mind is only a terrified white noise, but his arm is still working just fine. When it's about to reach them, he steps up and hits it with his crowbar. Wheels fly and metal crumples, but it merely serves to rotate the whole thing, puts it on its side. It punctures his left shoulder- his first thought, before the pain, is that it'll need a tetanus shot. He twists away and scrambles to put distance between him and it, as much as possible. That is, unfortunately, not much in this little hallway.
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He was focused on the fight in front of them- he couldn't break his focus to look at Lynn. But then she dropped to the ground, and he had to pay attention to her actions. She was brushing away something, something important. These things were always hidden in places like these. It was writing. Henry reads it aloud:
"I've let it have my voice ( ... )
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In the dark of the passageway, Eileen's presence is reduced to sound only. Agonized moans after the last scream and a wet impact, the rustle of fabric rolling over grit and debris, breaths drawn too harshly and too quickly. Then a gasp of effort, the scrape of an outstretched arm flung out along the floor, and the clattering of a handgun over broken tile that comes to rest near his feet.
Reply
He fired rather wildly, but one of bullets in the clip he empties actually hits a part of the mark that's not metal. This particular shot seems to have be particularly successful, as the monster rears back. It immediately spins out with something sharper, but then it twitches again. Every twiisted spike of metal on the creature gleams in the sick, low light.
Reply
The gun's components click against each other as its bearer's hands shake. She stares down into the dark in astonishment, and delicately sets the 9mm down on the inscribed floor in front of her.
Reply
The silence that settled after that was heavy, but Henry had to disturb it. "Eileen? You both okay over there?"
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