John's Lawn

Chad opened the door to the hallway, “Ladies first.”

“What are you twelve?” I replied, walking into the hallway, “Besides, we really don’t have time for this right now. We need to find everyone.” He nodded and followed me. Taking the lead shortly after. We ran to the door Chad had been hearing something from. “This could be another trap. On second thought, I am 90 percent sure this is a trap. You still wanna go in?”

“I should be asking you that. Let’s do it.” He slowly opened the door. A strong metallic somehow piercing the already overwhelming stench of the house. 

“Blood.” I stated, matter of factly. Chad, unphased by the aroma, continued to push the door open. The woman, who was tied to the wall at the far end of the room, had gashes and scrapes all over her body. “Hey… are you alive?” Something about her seemed familiar but it was hard to tell given her physical state.

She forced out a raspy sentence, “Yes, please help me.” I couldn’t quite place it but it sounded so familiar.

“Alright, I’m coming over. I have a knife, I can cut you down.”

Chad grabbed my shoulder and put his mouth right next to my ear, “Be careful.” he whispered, before letting go.

Nodding, I cautiously walked towards the woman. I couldn’t make out her face with her head slouched, but her brown hair, the parts without blood in it, made me think I knew her from somewhere. I finally reached her, “I’m going to need to grab your arm now so I can cut these ropes.”

“Thank you.” she managed to squeeze out before falling into a coughing fit. I started with her right arm, cutting the rope with ease. Next was the left arm.

“I’m going to do your legs now okay?” She let out a short whimper which I took as an “okay.” Starting this time with her left leg, the rope seemed a bit harder to cut. “We’re almost done. You’re doing great.” The right leg rope was even harder to cut.

“W-wait. Joseph?” She finally looked up as I stood. Her face rooted me to the ground, and fried my frontal lobes, I couldn’t do anything but stare, eyes seeming to reboot as I tried to process who was in front of me. Just as I began to respond, she fell back into a bloody cough.

“J-Jane? I-is it really you? How? Was everything at our house a set up or something?” All logic and reason flew out of my brain as my love for her flooded back. I went to hug her, bawling my eyes out like a toddler, I held her in my arms. “Don’t answer that, I don’t care. I just-” I felt something like a pinprick in my arm. As I began looking around, my brain finally processed the pain shooting up my left bicep. Looking down, I saw Jane biting down on my arm.

“Ahhhh.” Her voice was just as I remembered, “So refreshing, thanks sweety.” I felt light headed, I didn’t even have the strength to scream as my muscle was peeled from the bone, “Here I’ll help you down, you’ll be feeling that for a while.” She sat me down against the bloody wall, and I noticed her wounds healing themselves. My brain was fogged, danger signals fired off from my left arm as she slurped up the last few nerves hanging from her mouth.

“What the fuck?” Chad’s voice rippled, as if his voice was coming in and out of focus.

She sounded the same, “Hey, I gotta fix myself up somehow. Oh or did you mean my healing itself? Whatever, it doesn’t really matter. The only thing that does, is you being in the way here. Call me a sadist but I think I’ll enjoy killing you.” It was definitely her voice, but those words coming from her completely twisted it into a completely separate frequency.

As I sat there, watching the two get ready to fight, I remembered a special concoction Doc had made for me. It was similar to the things Jacob, the CO, used to stop his arm from bleeding, just a little more fast acting. With shaky hands I pulled the syringes out, cringing at what I was about to do. Pulling the caps off I readied them just above where my bicep would be. I stabbed and squeezed feeling the fast acting painkillers kick in as I watched my arm rapidly scab over and become normal skin again.  It was going to be hard to get that muscle back, but the painkillers kept me from concentrating on anything for too long. I looked up remembering the fight that was about to go down, just in time to see Jane get punched in the face, flying back so far she nearly hit the wall.

She grinned with pleasure like a sadomasochist. “Ooooo, the brute is a little stronger than expected, but you aren’t going to kill me with those weak blows.” It seemed Chad couldn’t draw anything but the short end of the straw no matter what. I felt bad for him, until—

“SHIT!” I screamed as lava pumped my arm and into my heart.

Chad gave me a downcast gaze, “Bro, we gotta get you to the Doctor like ASAP.” He said, punching the carnivorous imposter in the face, smashing her head into the wall. He scooped me up and booked it.

“Wait, why? What’s going on?” His worried expression didn’t do anything but make me anxious, “What happened this time?”

His voice returned to normal, “Bro, what do you know that eats flesh and heals?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know man, Courier 6?” I replied in panicked sarcasm.

“Vampire, she was a vampire dude. I don’t know if that was really your wife or not, but whatever it was, it was a vampire. I mean probably anyway.” He sounded pretty sure of himself, “But, you’ll probably die if you don’t get treated. I mean like, if you aren’t already something with powers, it’ll just kill you. I think it has something to do with a human soul not being able to handle it or something like that.”

“Let me guess. That’s complete speculation isn’t it?”

“Nooooo… I heard something about it a while back I think. Memory’s a bit foggy. But I mean like, it couldn’t hurt to get to the Doctor.”

Just then, I heard something quickly approaching from behind, “No need for you to slow down, I’ll be there shortly.” Her voice was right behind us, and before I knew it, she was in front of us, swinging her hand, nails cutting off one of Chad’s bracers as he stopped, attempting to block. He followed up with his own left hook, slamming her into the wall yet again, before he continued running. But this time, we only got a few feet before Chad and I were getting flung through a wall. I braced for impact but he just let it happen. The moment we landed on the other side of it, we saw Rachel, lying on the ground. With no time to help her, Chad dropped me to the ground, preparing for combat yet again.

I made my way over to Rachel, I know it was a dumb move, considering everything. But my head still wasn’t on straight. “Hey Rachel. You awake?” I asked, nudging her shoulder.

She shot up, eyes flinging open, “Where did they go? Why are you here? Joseph if you don’t answer right this second-”

I cut her off, “Calm down, we haven’t found them yet, but we’re kind of in deep shit right now. Long story short, we came to help and ran into some shit. Can you move?”

Struggling to stand, she fell down. Proceeding to pull out a small bag of something and inhale it, throwing it to the ground, she rose without a problem, “She doesn’t look familiar, neither does her soul.” Tearing her human form apart she charged after whoever was wearing my wife.

“Oh you want to join the party as well? Sorry but we’re at full occupancy you sentient compost.” Jane swung her fist, but before it could connect, Chad’s fist plowed into her face, throwing her against the wall. 

“Bro, maybe you should pay attention to your surroundings if you’re gonna get all cocky like that.” Chad said with a smug grin.

Throwing a bottle at the woman, Rachel responded, “I don’t need beauty advice from a soul as old as yours.” Her voice was gravelly. Whatever was inside of the bottle began eating away at her skin and through her skull. As it reached her brain, Jane vanished into a cloud of smoke, just as Takeo had. “Now then.” Rachel turned to me, “Your soul is looking off today. What happened?”

Pulling up my left sleeve, I showed her what happened, “She kinda, tore a chunk out of my bicep with her mouth.”

“Here, smell this.” As a rule of thumb, I try to stay away from huffing anything I don’t know. But, considering it was Rachel, I didn’t think she was trying to get me hooked on some kind of paranormal cocaine. I did what she asked and felt an intense shiver devour me. Now, I want to convey just how intense this shiver was. Not like an, “I think someone is following me,” shiver, not even a, “Holy fuck what just touched me?” Shiver. No, more like a, butt naked in a sauna, to suddenly standing in the middle of Antarctica mid winter, shiver.

It took everything I had to keep myself from toppling over, “W-what in the hell. What was that for.”.

“Slowing the process is all. I can’t cure you, so we have to prevent it from getting to your heart until we reach the Doctor. Which means you have to keep your heart rate as low as possible.” Just as she finished talking, I began to feel immensely relaxed. I could barely move a muscle but I couldn’t bother caring about it.

“Rache, do you know where they are? And like, why they left you here?” Chad asked.

“As far as I know, they left me here to keep me safe after…” she hesitated, “I’m not sure what happened, I can’t quite remember.” She shook her head like an etch-a-sketch

Laughter exploded out of my mouth, “Hey, maybe the house ate them or something.” My laughter got a little louder but I tried to calm myself down, “I mean, this house is pretty jank, what if it just like, swallowed them or something. Wouldn’t that be crazy?” Almost immediately, I fell face first onto the hardwood floor, cutting my upper lip, “Oh oh oh, maybe the basement is filled with crocodiles? I wanna pet a crocodile so bad right now for some reason.”

A sigh escaped Rachel’s mouth, “I see what the Doctor was talking about now, absolutely no drug tolerance. Though he may have a point, the building seems to shift itself around from time to time. Hallways we were walking down suddenly disappeared as we reached the end of them. I don’t remember where they went exactly but if I remember correctly they said something about a stairway.”

“Stairways are so much fun. I mean like, you can go up and down them. What’s not to love?”

“Alrighty.” Chad lifted me up with one hand, throwing me over his shoulder, “I think we should probably like, get started on looking for them and all that.”

“Chad, have I ever told you how crazy your muscles are? They’re like WHOOSH.” I said making a flying hand motion.

They began hauling ass down hallway after hallway whilst I made random remarks that were all over the place. While dangling over Chad’s shoulder, I began to realize what Rachel had been talking about. Certain hallways would close up after getting to the end. But it wasn’t like a wall would shoot up. It was more along the lines of a wound being closed. As though the hole was never meant to be there, and it couldn’t heal until everything had left it.

“I think we’re going into the belly of the beast!” I remarked after seeing one of the hallways close, still high out of my mind.

After another ten minutes or so, it felt like we were going in circles. Though, it may have just been me. That was until we came across an unfamiliar staircase. “This must be it.” Rachel said, “At least I hope.” 

Chad proceeded to throw me at the wall as gently as he could, before getting rammed by a huge… I’m not even sure. Just a huge thing. “Woooooow, finally something has a bit of fight in it here.” Suddenly a horn that hadn’t been there before tore straight through Chad and his armor. Coughing up blood, he remarked, “Shit bro, didn’t see that coming.” Before throwing it against the wall with the force of a bulldozer. But the wall was unharmed. The bulky creature struggled to stand. 

Just as it staggered to a standing position, Rachel simply stated in a monotone voice, “I don’t have time for this.” Before sticking her right hand into the wall and pulling out a massive spear made of what looked to be sanded and polished bone. Slicing the creature in half she said in a worried tone, “I wasn’t expecting it to be made of this.”

“Whatever, we need to hurry down there now.”

Chad reached down to pick me up again, but I refused, “I think I’m about sober enough to drive a semi now, I can do this.” I stated, wiping some of the creature’s blood from my face.

“I need to patch you up before we can continue anyway Chad, now get over here.” He let out a sigh and walked over to her.

After an awkward silence of Rachel repairing Chad’s general stomach area. Get off my tits, I’m not an anatomologist or whatever people who study anatomy are called. We started down the stairs and finally began to hear the sounds of fighting. As we ran down the hallway, the worst static I’d ever heard, sounded through the corridor. It was literally empty, just a warm, humid hallway that seemed to have light emanating from every direction. We’d almost reached the door at the end of the hallway when I remembered the Terry-resistant earplugs I’d brought with me.

Once we were all ready, Chad kicked the door open, and we walked through.

Terry was in the center of the room, practically standing still, getting beaten to all hell by multiple entities. The three USPM members were scattered around the room with practically no armor left, all bloodied and quite possibly dead. Megami was facing off with another entity that was seemingly preventing her from getting to Terry. The doctor had nothing but torn-up pants and his plague doctor mask on fighting four different entities barehanded. He was way more jacked than his clothes implied. Jacob seemed to be splattered against a wall on the right side of the room, but he was twitching so I took that as a sign he was probably alive.

The door slammed shut behind us and I heard Terry yelling at me in his inhuman voice, more horrifying than it had ever sounded, “JOSEPH LEAVE NOW! YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE!” He hadn’t even turned to see us.

Before I could get a response out, I saw a familiar face sitting on a throne at the far end of the room. Seated there, was a man, dressed in much more formal attire than last I saw him. But the Chef’s knife in his hand, and the blue light emanating from it, was all the proof I needed to know… it was him.