Oslonaut
wonders in revealing every obscured demon
S A R A H
The Great Escape
Wednesday, October 17th, 2018
I knew this was a bad idea but, in the absence of any good ideas, I continued forward. Max Payne |
With a metallic water bottle in hand that read ‘CAMPING WITH A CHANCE OF ALCOHOL’, Sarah began to sneakily proceed down the stairs the led to the front of the wide fish tank at the center of the ground floor. But then, without warning, she bumped into a young woman sneaking up the stairs. What could have very easily been a startled smack with the butt of her glock turned into a poor attempt to cover the young woman’s surprised yelp when Sarah noticed the tears streaming down her eyes. Realizing she was a victim here and not the maniac with the rifle, Sarah quickly reacted and tossed the metallic water bottle towards the other side of the room as a distraction. It landed with a loud and resounding clang, followed by the sound of distant footsteps.
“Go. Hurry!” Sarah whispered, ushering the brunette along before continuing downward in a half-crouch.
“B-Be careful! Please don’t let him hurt Thomas!” The woman whispered back, pleading as if Sarah was her last and only chance to rectify this terrible situation.
Ignoring the woman and simply hoping she’d follow her advice and not do anything stupid, Sarah finally made it to the ground floor… before realizing the dead body that had been there earlier was no longer there. But if no one had moved it then that could only mean…
She placed both hands on her glock once more, dropping back down into a low crouching stance as she maneuvered through the wavy streaks of green light that shone down from the fish tank. Just as she was about to enter an aisle and smoothly take cover, however, a gun shot rang out that missed her shoulder by inches and pierced the thick glass behind her. She dove into cover before the maniac could aim another shot, doing her best to steady her breathing and calm her nerves as she analyzed the damage done to the tank with her own two eyes. Water was beginning to spew from the bullet hole, mingling with the pool of blood on the floor in a whirlpool of red.
“AND WHO THE FUCK ARE Y--” The roar was interrupted the blast of a shotgun nearby, sending the lunatic who had attempted to shoot her into cover himself only a few aisles down.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” A younger voice called out, more hurt than angry. Sarah had a hunch that this was the ‘Thomas’ the young brunette had mentioned earlier. “My dad was innocent! He had nothing to do with this!”
“YOUR DAD WAS A PIECE OF SHIT JUST LIKE YOU!”
Working up the nerve to do so, Sarah peeked around the corner of her aisle and managed to witness the very moment a different young woman (with Asian features like her deceased father) attempted to strike the shooter with an assault rifle. The man whacked the weapon away using the rifle as a club, however, then elbowed the woman across the face before kicking her in the chest, cocking his gun, and burying the tip of his barrel in the top of her hair. “You stupid bitch.”
It was at that moment that a man with a camo jacket stepped into the scene, aiming a crossbow in the maniac’s general direction but clearly unsure about who to set its sights on. “West? Buddy, is that you? What the hell is going on here?” He asked, watching as his friend held a gun to a young girl’s head and seemed to be prepared to execute her. His eyes were wild. Red. Like fire.
“Clyde,” West uttered, his smile almost as greasy as his slicked back black hair. “I’m glad you’re here. See, I got a bit of a situati--” He blinked when, suddenly, he caught a glimpse of the figure stumbling towards his friend from behind an aisle. The old man he’d buried a shotgun blast into (before the homewrecker wrestled the shotgun away from him) was still standing. “How the fuc--” Before he could think on it any longer, a series of events happened almost simultaneously and in a blur:
The dead man sunk his teeth right into Clyde’s neck, tearing apart the jugular of his throat savagely and without a care in the world as Clyde screamed out in a daunting mixture of disbelief, horror, and pain. His body hit the ground and bent like a sack of dirty laundry, and the bloodied old man dropped down with it to continue tearing off chunks of flesh with his mouth. West was spared the majority of the gruesome sight when the young girl he had smacked prior suddenly busted his knee with a camping pan she pulled off the rack to her side. He yelped in pain and tried to shoot her immediately after, aiming a shot poorly with one hand and completely missing his target as the young woman dashed away, abandoning her empty and battered assault rifle on the floor.
“Cassidy!? Cassidy, are you okay?!” Thomas called out to his sister from nearby, peeking out from behind a counter with his now empty shotgun in hand. All he managed to spot, though, was a mysterious girl (Sarah) sneaking away from the commotion and towards the guns and hunting equipment section. Unfortunately for her, West spotted her as well from the dark reflection of the now damaged fish aquarium. He hissed in pain and disdain as he did his best to stand firm on both feet, aiming his rifle with both hands this time as he tried to keep track of her movement.
“AAAGH!” He screamed out in rage, firing his rifle repeatedly as Sarah rushed towards the section she needed to be in, the bullets hitting everything from lanterns to camping gear and fishing lures-- everything except her. And, while the final shot West had for her might have met its mark, it never had a chance when Thomas suddenly burst out from behind the counter and bum-rushed the killer. West pivoted to his side and hastily attempted to bury that final bullet in Thomas’ heart… but it struck another hole into the aquarium instead, only moments before the side of Thomas’ shotgun struck his head. West staggered sideways and tried to recover, dropping his rifle. Thomas hit him again. And again. And again.
Meanwhile, ZZ Top and the man in the orange vest hurriedly attempted to pull the flesh-eating old man off of their friend Clyde. When the man in the orange vest shot the old man in the back with a crossbow bolt, however, an old woman suddenly shrieked and came out of nowhere with a bowie knife. She jumped on the man’s back and stabbed him in the chest repeatedly, her sobs and shrieks as traumatizing as one would expect from a woman who had seen her husband get killed twice in one day. When ZZ Top swerved around and yelled, aiming his own weapon at her and calling her a ‘crazy bitch’, he didn’t realize that the crossbow bolt that had pierced through the old man’s chest hadn’t managed to put the flesh-eater down at all. He successfully planted his own crossbow bolt in the old woman’s forehead, dropping onto his knees to catch his stabbed friend afterwards. But he would pay for that mistake in seconds when the undead senior citizen decided his shoulder looked tasty.
By the time this had happened, Sarah dove into a slide across the wooden floor and behind the counter where the ammunition was kept, hurriedly reaching for the first box of ‘Steel Boys’ that she could find. Pulling out the bullets that were cradled in the box like little sleeping babies, she quickly took out her mag and loaded it when she heard sounds coming from nearby. Do or die. Do or die. Do or DIE. She clocked the loaded magazine in and about-faced to aim the glock at the young Asian woman who had suddenly appeared from around the corner, aiming a pistol of her own with a seriously bad bruise across her left cheek and jaw.
Through some miracle, neither of them shot. But they had come dangerously close.
Interaction: BunnyQueen