The Battle For Blogland - Ch. 13: The Town

Apologies for the gap in activity. But it's here now. So devour.
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Theme: "Ghost Of Days Gone By" - Alter Bridge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-zw_sqU_mk

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13

THE TOWN

What I felt wasn’t shock. I’d felt true shock too many times over the past months for this to really fall into the category of shock. It was more like unease, which was surprising. At the sight of Death Rose – alive, arm outstretched, half concealed in shadow – I didn’t feel relief, or anything else that may have generally been expected in the situation. It was unease. Unease, because what this really meant was that this was one more person to worry about. I’d almost managed to block out everyone else I hadn’t seen or heard from since the initial invasion, and focus on the people around me. I didn’t want to have to worry about them or dwell on what could have happened to them. If they were even still alive. I didn’t want that – didn’t want to have to know.

But now I would have to know. Death would undoubtedly have a story, maybe one that held the loss of more of our friends. Maybe it would just be something else that we’ve all heard before; fleeing, running, starving, confused. But perhaps it would mean hurling our worlds into a further infinitely large mass of chaos and confusion, of loss and silence.

When no one moved for another few moments, Death beckoned again. Slowly, we turned to look at one another, as if to verify that we were all seeing the same thing. Then Ivy stepped forwards and stalked inside, pushing past Death on the way. The rest of us followed cautiously. Despite Death being there, I still had my doubts about the town. Everyone did.

The interior and exterior of every building we had just intruded upon in the town was old, run down and musty, and the pub was no different.  The floors, walls and ceiling were made of decaying wood and everything was coated in a thick layer of grime and must. Aged wooden stairs against the wall led up to a second floor flooded by the darkness and obscured from view. Every window and break in the framework was covered up completely with wooden boards, held in place with rusting nails that had evidently been straining to continue doing their job for some time now.

The door shut behind us, killing over half of the remaining light in the room. Reduced to little more than a shadow again, Death walked past us and sat down on the bar, facing everyone.

Silence fell and we looked at Death and Death looked at us, and no one said anything, and the emptiness solidified around us, and still we stared. Different thoughts and emotions raced through my mind, crashing into one another and causing my brain to ache. The story would come soon. I wanted to know what had happened to Death as much as I didn’t want to ever find out. I needed to know how many others she had seen come and go as much as I couldn’t bear to hear any of it. And who knew how much Death herself could be trusted right at this moment? Who’s to say that she hadn’t witnessed every last one of her friends murdered in front of her and that in turn had driven her in to a psychotic insanity? Every event and every wound would come spilling out of her mouth soon enough and I wasn’t ready for it.  And I’m not sure if I ever would have been ready for it. But for now, then, there was no story of horror and bloodshed and battle and loss and exhaustion and hurt. For now there was just the silence that had settled back over our scene, over her scene, and over the town as a whole until even the distant rain seemed to dim under the silence as competing source of actual noise.

Finally, she spoke. “Who are you?” Death asked us.

Our group as a whole practically lifted an eyebrow in unison.

“What?” asked Flame.

“Who are you?” she repeated. “There’s no possible way any of you can actually be alive.”

Nixion turned to me. “Why does no one ever want to believe that we’re real?” he asked.

I shrug helplessly. “Must be a trend or something,” I reply, giving Ivy a glance who scowled back, the whole conversation sounding ridiculously out of place given the general mood that had been hanging around ever since the City.

“We were sure you were dead,” she continued.

“Nice of you,” Ivy shot at her.

“Don’t take it personally, it was you along with everyone else we knew,” Death replied. “We gave up.”

“You keep saying ‘we’,” Nixion noted. “Who else is here?”

“Thrust,” she said. “And Lorelei.”

“Hey,” Thrust muttered to us from one of the far corners as he stepped out of the shadows.

“Where’s Izz?” Ivy asked in her usual coldly devoid voice.

“Upstairs,” Death said. “Don’t go there.”

“Why not?” asked Ivy.

“For one thing, she’s resting right now,” explained Death, “And for another, I don’t trust any of you yet.”

Most of us frowned. “What?” asked Flame. “Why?”

“Pfft,” Death scoffed, shifting into a more comfortable position on the bar. “You’re really asking that? We’ve been through hell – I’m sure you all have too. I knew you guys, what, four months ago? I thought you were all dead, I’ve seen friends die in front of me. Believe it or not, I’ve changed a lot since we last met. And I know you all have too. At the moment, I don’t even know you. You’d all be idiots to trust me right away.”

While this rubbed most of us the wrong way, it simply aggravated Ivy further. “Screw you,” she spat, and headed for the stairs. Death leaped from her spot on the bar and was blocking Ivy’s path to the stairs in a flash.

“Turn around,” Death narrowed her eyes.

“Never tell me what to do,” Ivy growled, summoning a bright red ball of energy as Death raised an arm, preparing to manipulate the gravity around her.

“You have both got to be kidding me,” Lorelei Fetch said from the top of the stairs.

Death let out a long sigh and turned around slowly. “You shouldn’t have got up,” she said.

“You aren’t the boss of me,” Lorelei replied. “That said… You’re probably right. We’ve got guests.”

Flame waved from beside Nixion. “Hello.”

“What happened to your leg?” Ivy frowned.

The previously referenced leg was bandaged in thick layers of cloth, most of which was soaked in blood. It looked painful, even though it was covered up, and it was pretty obvious that Lorelei was placing no weight on it.

“They haven’t explained yet?” she asked.

“We only just arrived,” I told her.

“Not a better time, then,” Lorelei said, turning around. “Death, Thrust, get to it.” And she returned into her room upstairs, closing the door shut behind her, a loud creak following the action.

Death muttered under her breath and she and Ivy returned to us as Thrust stepped out of the shadows and took one of the seats at the bar. Ivy took a second seat, still looking annoyed, and Death walked behind the bar as silence fell again.

“Anyone want a drink?” she asked after a few moments.

***

“So,” Death sighed again once we were all seated at the bar with different assortments of soft drinks and alcohol – simply because some of us figured why not. Sparky did not sit. “When it all began, there were five of us. Me, obviously, Eden, Thrust, Vlaedr and Kestrel.”

My stomach squirmed silently as it realised that the story was beginning. A whole new group of people that we hadn’t heard from yet. And now we were all going to have to know what had happened to them…

“The Hollow Men came out of nowhere, and the zombies followed them,” Death continued. “We fought, of course, but it became useless pretty quickly. Gas was chocking us, we were tired, and we couldn’t keep it up for much longer. Eventually, we turned and ran.”

“We ran for the rest of the day,” Thrust picked up the story and continued while Death took a swig of beer. “And for three nights we were alone, cold and hungry. Water wasn’t a problem because it rained most of the time. The fourth night, it wasn’t raining. We’d moved far enough away from it, I suppose. But that night we ran into two people.”

“Lorelei,” Death started talking again. “And Beach Ball.”

There was an awkward silence that followed these words.

“I’m sorry…” Flame said quietly. “But I feel compelled to ask. Who the hell is Beach Ball?”

“That was his name…” Death frowned. “Well, one of them. I don’t remember many of the others.”

“Dylan?” asked Nixion. “Really? One of his names was Beach Ball?”

Death shrugged. “Obviously. But yeah, him, I suppose. We ran into Lorelei and Dylan. We shared stories and theirs was basically the same as ours.”

“Pfft, not really,” Ivy said. “Dylan was with us to begin with. Well, I say ‘us’…” Fresh memories of Star, Gabriel and, in turn, Lavender, turned over in our minds.

“We’ll explain later…” Nixion said in a dangerously quiet voice.

“Right…” Thrust muttered. “Anyway. So yeah. Izz had a twisted ankle but they were otherwise alright. That said, we had some problems.”

“One particular problem,” Death refined for him. “Namely, Vlaedr.”

“Vlaedr?” asked Flame.

“His wolf part,” Death explained. “When he lost control. He was the angriest out of all of us, so when he got bad, he’d change.”

“And every time he did, we had to calm him down,” Thrust said. “Which wasn’t easy.”

“About a week after we met up with Lorelei and Dylan, we were too late,” Death continued. “Eden and I were out looking for food. Dylan and Thrust stayed behind to watch Vlaedr and look after Lorelei. But when we got back, Vlaedr had changed again.”

“We tried to calm him,” Thrust said. “But it didn’t work – only aggravated him. It turned into a fight. You saw Izz’s leg? Vlaedr did that. Destroyed it.”

“Kes’s arm got broken too,” Death said. “And Dylan was killed. One of Vlaedr’s claws, right across his throat.”

And so there it was. One of the mysteries solved – the final battle that Dylan had. His body that we found, a night so very long ago now. I still remembered it vividly. The red eye that opened over his throat. His battered body, battle marks everywhere. The last fight; a fight with a wolf. Not even an actual enemy, just the enraged beastly Vlaedr… It was probably a worse way to go out than against any of our real enemies.

“Anyway…” Thrust broke the silence. “Vlaedr stopped. Eventually. It took hours, but he ended up passing out and when he woke up, he was in control again.”

“But Lorelei couldn’t even walk anymore,” Death said. “Her leg was completely ruined, mangled. Beyond repair. And she was in pain. Kes was in pain too, of course, with her broken arm. And Dylan was dead. We had to find some place with supplies, where we could treat Lorelei, heal Kes, and rest.”

“Eden was a teleported, of course,” Thrust interjected. “He went from viewpoint to view point – wherever he could see, looking for some kind of civilization. After six or so hours, he came back. Said he found a town of sorts.”

“And so he bought us here,” Death said, gesturing around and taking another mouthful of beer. “Only it wasn’t that simple.”

“It was night,” Thrust said. “Again. And Eden hadn’t teleported us inside the town. A few metres to the outside. There’s this desert, that just stops. There’s a line, or something.”

“Yeah, we know,” Flame said. “We came from that way.”

“Right,” nodded Thrust. “Anyway. We, of course, didn’t know what happens at night. So we stepped across the line. And went into the town. And then they came.”

“Vampires,” Death said softly. “Three of them. Like an alarm went off. They were on us before we even knew what was happening. It was only seconds before Vlaedr turned again. He raged and attacked, but it was futile. Within seconds, he’d been bitten and infected.”

“Wasn’t long before Kestrel was bitten either,” Trust sighed. “It’s weird. There was no time where they were just Infected drones or anything. They were converted the second they were bitted. Kestrel literally burst out of her skin, and Vlaedr was… Different. He’s like a wolf-vampire now.”

“But anyway,” Death muttered, obviously not keen to linger on the details. “We ran. Just ran. Couldn’t outrun any of them of course, but we fought and ran, and somehow made it to this tavern. And somehow, we held it out until sunrise.”

“We figured,” Thrust said. “That they’d revert to human form afterwards, right? Well, the second the sun came up, it was like they vanished. None of us were actually looking at them, so they didn’t really vanish, but they were gone as if they had.”

“The next day, we looted every building in the town,” Death said. “Or, most of them. As many as we could manage. We got food, supplies, medicine, and so on. We treated Lorelei, ate, healed, and then got to barricading the place. Because that night, the vampires came back again. And they still had Vlaedr. The Vlaedr Wolf Vampire.”

“It was a night of screaming, mostly,” Thrust said, sounding resigned. “Most of our barricades had been knocked down and we’d had to fight again. So the next day we re-fortified as much as possible. And the next night they held out.”

“For the next month or so we stayed in here,” Death said. “Didn’t have to do anything when night came. We just sat in the corners and tried to make sure we didn’t get terrified of the sounds of the vampires trying to get inside.”

“One day there were… developments,” Thrust said uneasily with a glance at Death, who’d looked down at the bar and stopped talking. “Izz was getting slowly worse, but was generally alright. We were more or less sitting ducks, with no where else to go. And things weren’t, all things considered, too bad here. But we were worried about everyone else. We wanted to find you, and the rest of our friends of course. But we didn’t have the first idea how to. We debated leaving the Town for two months to try and find others. Ended up deciding to stay, of course. But then, maybe, two weeks ago? Eden decided he was going to go back to Central. To check if anyone else was there. He said he’d be right back. Vanished. And we haven’t seen him since.”

Something about those words sparked in my mind. Two weeks ago. Two weeks ago… Approximately two weeks ago, we would have been battling it out against the masses back at Central ourselves. Then I remembered the weird flash of light that appeared out of no where, forgotten in the aftermath because it had been drowned out in magnitude by the loss of Lynxia.

I looked around at everyone else and the look on their faces told me that at least half of them were remembering what I was. My head dipped. How exactly were we supposed to explain this to them?