It was ******** freezing, it always was in Rep's flat, no because he couldn't afford the heating - he was well paid by the guys he worked for. It was just that said flat was mostly given over to ******** picky and prone to overheating machines. The combination of severs and CD/DVD writing towers he'd strung together connected to his own computer in a local network he'd fondly titled Alex. It was his livelihood and most fiercely defended possession, the last guy who'd ******** with his setup without asking had ended up in the Southern General for his troubles. He was important to their gig they had going, one of the chief distributors of cracked games and pirated movies.
Nevertheless it was boring work, a lot of his time was just spent waiting for the drives to write discs, burning movie after movie, labelling, printing out covers and stowing them in protective pockets. While he waited for s**t to print and burn, there wasn't really a lot to keep him occupied. Normally he went out, the local clubs were a good source of dumb cunts who wanted to pick a fight and get their nose broken or sufficient drink or drugs to ensure you might not want to break every ******** wide-o's nose that you came across. It was a tender balancing act. Other times he cruised the red light districts, excess dirty money and an insatiable libido meant the bitches knew him, feared him but still sought him out for his deep pockets.
He couldn't be arsed with either option that night. Div had been looking for him with his mates, some ******** grudge bollocks about the time he keyed McGinley's motor. Arsehole'd been saying he'd give him a doing and Rep just wasn't in the mood for a fight. Hoors were out because he was still coming down off his last buzz and the idea of anyone touching him was making his skin crawl. He couldn't ******** forget the bad trip that had crept up on him the other night, the twisting shift of shadows that shouldn't have been there at all, movements on the periphery of his vision he couldn't ignore.
So he'd turned to one of his other little side hobbies to keep himself entertained indoors. He'd been messing with phreaking for a long time, since there'd been only landlines availiable to ******** with. With how popular mobiles had been getting he'd found it very entertaining to run a pbx and simply listen in to mobile phone calls that were passed back and forth around where he lived. It was like a soap opera where no c**t knew he was invested in their pathetic little lives.
That night though there was a strange call on the airwaves, no one he recognised and not an accent he recognised either. They sounded American, which to him meant three things, tourists, spies or drug dealers. Drug dealers were an extremely ******** profitable investment and these guys, for whatever reason, sounded serious.
Maybe he would be going out tonight on his own after all.
Throwing on his coat, he tucked his machete in his boot before deciding that this would be a ******** risky haul and retrieving from its hiding place next to the weed cupboard, the gun he'd managed to acquire from the connections his job afforded. He only ever took the thing with him when s**t was serious, just being caught with it on him could land him five years inside. But something in his gut told him he might need it.
It was ******** freezing in Rep's apartment, but outside it was ******** freezing and being Scotland, driving with rain. He got in his car - a modded up merc way beyond what he should have been able to afford on unemployment - and pulled out into the night, following the location of the strange broadcast to it's source.
Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2013 11:21 am
The broadcast continued, mostly background noise, promises of locating a 'site' and finding a rendezvous point. It was both exciting and mediocre, all words and no promises, the sort of noise that made up B budget cop shows and movies complete with an eternal green screen of two cops talking in a prop car. Rain was pouring down now, which wasn't uncommon, and neither was the rate of it, or the winds pushing the car precariously, just so. It continued to dribble in splatters along the windshield-
- And then stopped.
Something was covering the car. It was dark, but the shape was darker, towering above suburban building, jagged spines and the bare semblance of a long reptilian muzzle peering through the rain.
There was something in its teeth and half of it fell out, hitting the car windshield hard. Half a body, just the head and torso. Blood, as heavy as rain splattered against the window a second later.
And then silence. Something moved. A step perhaps or just the rain.
There was a terrible screech and then a giant claw gouged right into the hood of the car, easily tearing through metal, pulling it back into one crumpled mess. A single yellow eye, larger than the car, stared at Rep.
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Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2013 11:36 am
Rep parked hopefully, waiting what felt for ever listening to uncertain and vague comments passed back and forth. He wasn't sure he was going to find anything, but at least it was peaceful, the steady hiss of the rain background static to the strange broadcast. Outside the wind was picking up and he turned up the heater a little, letting the window wipers metronome out the seconds.
When the rain stopped he looked up startled, the sudden silence unbearably loud with it's presence. He stared up into the dark above the car, a ragged spined creature out there in the dark. Surely ******** not. ********. He still had to be coming down off the drugs, another bad trip, another ******** slide into madness. He'd been to the doctors, they'd said it was likely stress.
Except stress couldn't disembowel people, and that blood looked ******** real. He'd seen plenty of blood in his time and that was unmistakable. He froze in his tracks, a dumb, animal response, as if by freezing his brain would correct itself and the hideous sight it had conjured up.
When the claw gouged its way into the expensive metal and peeled lit back like so much tinfoil, he lost any ability to think he was tripping. It was too cohesive for anything he'd ever taken, too ******** nightmarish. He stared back into the eye, his own eyes wide, and tried with every bit of composure he possessed, not to move an inch. Running wasn't even an option, he couldn't outrun something that big, he'd seen enough ******** movies in his life - suddenly much too short and much too wasted when he thought about it - to know that.
Zoobey
Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2013 2:25 pm
The horrific eye blinked, a second layer of membrane folding in, once, twice-
- And the infinite black above him unfolded into a long jagged line of jagged white teeth. The white continued to split, further, further, an infinite line, a mouth, perhaps as the single claw scraped and ripped the car to its seams, practically impaling Rep as it tried to snag its morsel.
The terror of how trivial he really was at the mercy of something wet and foul and unexplainable seemed to last forever. Black smoke hissed from it within close range, making its shape uncertain. A bad trip. Drugs. It was the perhaps the perfect creation of Rep's nightmares and fears manifested. It was ugly and misshapen and unbelonging and so was he.
It moved, once again struggling to claw at him, an agitated low growl escaping the rows and rows of serrated teeth-
- shouts. Human shouts. It happened too fast. The thing, recoiled back, it shrieked and nearly burst Rep's eardrums, it thrashed and tore up earth and pavement itself. There was someone - several someones - beating it back, just the bare flashes of light, of strange not police dressed in white and gold holding weapons torn right out of the realm of dreams and nightmares-
And then a flash of colour. Blue. White. Silence.
One severed clawed hand came tumbling down, right where the hood of Rep's car had been. Its end was smoking thick black, no ichor or blood, just smoke, and its claws unfurled, the tip of it stopping right in front of the hapless occupant's throat. Any closer and he would have just been collateral damage.
The rain had resumed. There were shouts outside, brief flecks of light and noise. The figures in white were talking amongst each other, words in the distance that made no sense. Fear. Missions-
-"and then you just had to show off. There is a line called overdoing it you know." Two people were fast approaching the car, both holding strange glowing weapons. They hadn't noticed Rep yet, and the guy holding a strange claw-like weapon glowing orange was gesturing at another guy who kept on swiping away bits and pieces of wiggling smoking thing parts with a scythe weapon. The blue-white colour was familiar, the same that had sent the thing crashing down. And there was a feeling, something about the two that made them appear almost surreal.
The other didn't say anything.
"Glad to see we were of use", orange guy said sarcastically. "I'll set up a portal. Atleast life division will be happy." One could almost hear him rolling his eyes. "Not to mention-"
-"Ben."
-"where are we anyway? I thought you said Scotland, I was expecting-"
-"Ben."
-" maybe more guys in kilts and haggis and yes, sir?" The person allegedly called Ben looked up.
"Who the ******** is that."
And then they both turned to stare straight at Rep. The claw was still conveniently there just as a gentle reminder.
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Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2013 2:59 pm
It was madness. Sheer ******** madness. All the monsters he'd met in his life had been human, twisted and ******** up on the inside, not the outside. Somehow this made more sense, what he was looking at wore its nature on the outside, he knew it would kill him, there was no question. And at least this time when he was helpless, it was with good reason.
There had been a lot of times lately, in his bed at night with only the night for company he'd mused if he'd be better off dead, if he could just sidle off without inconveniencing anyone with his departure. He didn't even have a pet to mourn the food he provided. Alex, just a computer, wouldn't miss him. It had seemed easy at the time. But faced there and then with the enormous rows of deadly teeth and vast claws, there was a flicker of defiance rose up in him, rage and fury like he'd never felt before. He didn't ******** want to die, not here, not now, not like this. There was something unhinged and mad in the way he didn't flinch as the car ripped apart, his heart hammering in his veins, adrenaline slowing the world to a crawl, the shrapnel close (too close) but not close enough. He was food in a can for the ********, just a ******** snack, and he hated it. He hated helplessness more than anything else in the world.
All he could do was wait for his inevitable ******** demise. Too many movies was probably what it was he thought in adrenaline fuelled black humour, too many ******** pirated Godzillas and now he was going to get eaten by a real ******** one. Shadows, always ******** shadows, he'd learned not to tell anyone about the weird trips, some of them got worried when he did, probably thought he was going off the deep end.
Well now his cheese had slid right off his ******** cracker.
The roar made the world ring into deafening silence and he wanted to yell at the monster to just do it already when out of ******** left field a bunch of people weilding weapons like he'd never seen before - probably ******** government special ops or some s**t - swung in and brutalised the thing, absolutely slicing it to bits.
The slam of the claw landing where his perfectly waxed and polished hood had once been jarred him out of the frozen posture he'd taken through the previous few moments and he finally dared to breathe again, even as he did so feeling the talon far far too ******** close for comfort, absolutely and undeniably real. Had he crashed and this was just some ******** up version of hell? It was really ******** hard to tell.
But, to his credit, despite the shock, despite the way his hands were shaking and his heart was racing and the way he could hardly calm his breathing down to sensible levels, he was able to keep his thoughts on what was important.
Those ******** weapons had just made mincemeat out of a ******** GIANT MONSTER. Like it was easy. A monster which had wrecked his car (how was he ever going to claim on the insurance) as if it was made of ******** paper.
And now they were looking at him.
That same, furious, defiant instinct which had bubbled up in him when faced with death before simmered to the fore once again.
"The ******** are you ******** looking at?!" he snapped, his voice shrill with panic. "You ******** couldn't have gotten here before it wrecked my motor?!" He was pretty hysterical and the more he spoke, the worse it got, not even caring he was probably privy to some ******** men in black s**t and was about to be put down. "DO YOU JUST FIGHT THESE GIANT MONSTER THINGS ALL THE ******** TIME?" he barked incredulously. "And what the ******** are those weapons? YOU MIGHT AS WELL ******** TELL ME CAUSE I CAME OUT HERE EXPECTING A DRUG DEAL AND IM WONDERING IF THAT'S WHAT I FOUND."
Zoobey
Posted: Sat Dec 14, 2013 11:56 pm
The guy called Ben paused. And then started for some reason chuckling. "At least he has the accent."
The other guy didn't seem as amused. He walked right over to the civilian, weapon still very obvious, a lot more obvious at close range and-
-thunk-
-The last pieces of twitching claw dissipated to black smoke. He turned around, features mostly hidden by the dark and rain, seemed to effortlessly flick the weapon until the rather implicitly sharp blade that had just cut through a whole monster was bared right at Rep-
- And then darkness.
When Rep woke up it would be daytime again and he would still be in his wreck of a car. It was sunny, sort of, a compromise betwen sunlight and a light drizzle. Morning, probably. The strange people and the shadows were gone, leaving behind one civilian in a trashed car.
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Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2013 5:48 am
The weapons were like nothing he'd ever seen, that was all he could really think as he looked on, guns were one thing, but there was only so much a gun could do, these guys had just horrifically massacred something which shouldn't even have ******** existed.
He should have begged for mercy faced with the scythe-like blade so close to him, but his own stubbornness kept the instinct at bay, instead he just stared, almost hypnotised by the raw power of the thing and it's wielder, wondering in a dizzying instant where they came from.
Before he could say another word he slid out of conciousness and into blissful dark.
When he woke up he hurt all ******** over from being jolted around in the car - his beautiful expensive car - which was now a wrecked husk of it's former glory. Mercifully no one had found it yet, he didn't want to have to explain why his name wasn't on the documentation for the car, nor why its plates were all registered to another car completely. Besides, for how useless it had been, he was still carrying a gun and that too could land him in trouble.
It took a bit of kicking to get the door to open, and when he did he staggered off into the morning drizzle, determined to put a bit of distance between himself and the wreck that had at one point been a pride and joy but now was a reminder of how ******** up his life was getting. As soon as the destroyed mess was out of sight he could walk no further on his jellied legs. He stopped, leaned against a wall and ran his hands through his short hair, still dazed and in shock, desperately trying to process - and possibly explain away - what he'd witnessed.
"What the <********>." he snarled to no one in particular. He was sure now, he was going crazy, absolutely ******** off the deep end.
Zoobey
Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2013 12:34 am
The door opened in the quaint little patch of surburbia and as a resident walked out still in morning wear. The elderly man didn't even notice Rep, despite being right next to him and just dully continued to move forward until they reached the mail box.
Facing away from Rep, they opened their mail box. And still facing away, they turned their head a perfect one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, neck snapping and twisting until they focused on Rep. They smiled, longer and longer, mouth splitting their head until-
- SLAM.
Said person idly closed their box and wandered back with a paper in hand. He passed by and gave Rep an odd look, face bland and normal and human, before closing the door.
A police car pulled by a few minutes later, but passed him. The face of the driver seemed to distort into shadows, a bare flicker that was just the refraction of tinted glass.
All signs of abnormal monsters were gone but the shadows remained stronger.
Baneful
Back to the hijacked radio drawing board....
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Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2013 4:05 am
Rep looked on as people seemed to go about their daily lives around him, except everything was ******** wrong. His blood turned to ice as the man's head turned to face him, grinning madly, and he was about to run when the world snapped back like stretched elastic.
He'd heard that if you took too much acid, you kept it in your spinal column and it would come back for years and years to haunt you when you took other drugs. He'd only taken it a few times but part of him wondered if that had been enough. Maybe the small amount of E that he had taken the night before had ******** him up once and for all somehow, one block removed too many in the jenga tower of his life.
When the polis passed him, he froze, the way he always did, suspicious that they could tell he was shifty just by looking at him. The flicker of twisted up shadows that looked back at him from the windows once again made his heart skip a beat.
He had to to get home.
Nerves still jangling got the first bus he could catch back to his house, all the while trying not to look too hard at anyone or anything in case the creeping sense of wrongness once again bubbled to the fore. He kept his head down and as soon as he was back in the relative safety of his domain he tried to fall back into some semblance of normality.
Just to be safe, he once again cancelled his plans, he wasn't going out at all when everything was so ******** bizarre. He'd stay in he said, texting the guys. Stay in and finish the workload.
He didn't put the gun away, instead he kept it on him, even as he sat back at the PC and told the guys on the usenet what had happened to him, he kept thinking about it, paranoid - he told himself. Just paranoia, he was fine. Everything was fine. He even tried some weed to soothe his nerves, but all it did was alleviate his nervous shaking and not the memories of the enormous teeth in the rain.
Eventually he caved, and despite all reasoning to the contrary, turned the pbx and the other listening equipment on. He just wanted to hear someone mention it, to say they'd seen the creature too, to prove he wasn't going ******** mental. Government conspiracy theories were one of the main traits of a schizo right? He wasn't a ******** schizo, he couldn't afford to be.
Zoobey
Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2013 1:23 pm
The feed went on as normal, brief signals, background noise, the usual. Everything seemed off however, a little more ominous, as if at any moment the words themselves would sprout claws and fangs and tear him into shreds. It might have felt safe in the room, but it was also cloistering, each and every second of it the reality of being so vulnerable and unprotected. It was a bad drug trip that just wouldn't stop. They were everywhere, they were everyone, and they had broken the last barrier of lucidity, his last protection against complete mental breakdown and they were going to-
-"returning to yesterday's site. Requesting immediate assistance to deal with hostiles."
The voice was unmistakable. Even though the haze and veil of noise feedback, it still sounded familiar. A figure, joking about locals and accents. They held in their hands a weapon, and not just any weapon but one that-
-"Setting up base at ground zero. This whole place is plagued with them, I can't"-
- The second voice cut off and so did the first, and the white noise returned. He was not safe. He was also possibly, not quite sane.
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Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2013 3:06 pm
He couldn't remember the last time he'd ever had a trip this bad, the paranoia pervading everything he did. Every shadow in his house was sinister, every movement and creak of the house was foreboding. When he turned up the feed to try and drive off the oppressive silence, even the normally soothing steady static set his teeth on edge. He couldn't sustain the levels of stress he'd been experiencing since the accident without breaking, and there was no prospect of relief.
When the familiar voice crackled over the feed, he hardly dared to breathe.
They were back. Back where he'd run into them before. And if last night was anything to go by, around those guys was both the most dangerous and the safest ******** place to be. Staying here in his house wasn't an option, he thought. If he stayed in this room, he'd never ******** know. And not knowing, with everything unravelling all around him the way it was, might be enough to kick him over the edge with finality.
So against all better logical judgement, against all self-preservation instincts, he headed back out to where he'd lost a very ******** expensive car to a thing which couldn't possibly exist.
Zoobey
Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2013 2:17 am
The car was gone. And so for some reason, were the houses that surrounded it, as if the clearing that had cropped up overnight, blackened and charred was completely normal. Flimsy pieces of caution tape, a bare warning, spanned the charred area, and the strange feel of shadows seemed stronger the closer Rep walked.
In the very center of the clearing was a tent. There were voices talking inside it, muffled, but the tent itself was closed.
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I was just watching LotR and now everything I type sounds like dialogue from that movie sigh
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Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2013 6:40 am
Common sense said to get the ******** out of there, that something awful had to have happened here for the government to permit it to just sit this way unchanged. His car was gone, he doubted he'd ever see it again, after all there was next to nothing linking it to him in the first place.
The shadows were here, he could ******** feel them, more than in his house, but so too he felt were his answers.
He wasn't stupid enough to simply walk into the tent, but he was curious enough to get as close to it as he possibly could to see what he could overhear. Besides, if the guys from before were in there, he'd be safer just by being nearby.
Zoobey
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 12:06 am
"- complications, I already held off the locals but you know how people are about things like this," continued a voice inside the tent that sounded like the Scotland-tourist guy. There was a strange noise inside, a shrill sort of humming, as if some high voltage technology was secured inside. "I got a portal set up and everything just in case things go wrong. We'll send out a dispatch team tomorrow."
"Did you remove all traces of Fear contamination." Another familiar voice, one that spoke a little slower and more deliberately. "I want everything cleared up by tomorrow."
They continued chattering, though the humming grew a little louder. There were strange words exchanged. Runics, weapons handling, and a bunch more about something related to hostiles.
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 1:05 pm
Rep stayed quiet, trying to make head or tail of what the people in the tent were discussing. They'd somehow held off the "locals", that alone confirmed that they were from outside normal operations, implied at first by their accents. The hum was also unsettling, like a generator or some other tech. He found himself really badly wanting to know what the hell they had rigged up in their little tent.
Runics. Maybe they were a crazy hippy cult, he couldn't be sure.
At this point though, he was at the end of his tether and was working his way up to just storming into the tent and demanding compensation for his wrecked car and an explanation for what the ******** was going on, but the main thing keeping him at bay was the fact if he went in that tent, no one outside would even ******** know if he got murdered.
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