John's Lawn

“Who the HELL are you!?” I screamed at the man sitting on the throne.

“Don’t you think you should be assisting your fellow murderers? Joseph.” He was calm, yet I could hear him over the sounds of fighting.

Terry was in the center of the room not moving a muscle, letting his tentacles do all the work. It was a five-on-one battle and I couldn’t tell how much more he could handle. While I was aiming at one of the three sword-wielders attacking Terry, Chad sprinted to help Doc, and Rachel ran to Jacob who was still twitching against the undamaged wall. In spite of everything unraveling, I fired. I’d aimed for center mass, but when it tried to dodge, it dissipated as the bullet made contact. “Nine,” I said under my breath trying to remember if that was the right number.

With the absence of one of the entities attacking Terry, he managed to get the upper hand and stab another in the stomach. Which turned out to be far more lethal than I expected as the thing puffed into a cloud of smoke. I turned to Rachel, who was sewing something back together on Jacob but she wasn’t holding anything. I turned to Chad and Doc, Chad was mid right-hook, connecting with a thing that looked like a human-sized ragdoll, movements like a poorly made puppet. But it rebounded, striking Chad right where he’d been stabbed, knocking him back a few feet, blood spewing from his mouth.

Next came the other three things that had been going to pound town on Doc. They all seemed to be martial artists in one sense of the word or another. So when they all charged Chad, Doc finally had a moment to pull out his secret weapon. He shot the three of them with darts from a gun I’m not even sure could fit in his pocket. The three of them stopped what they were doing and turned on the ragdoll creature, quickly beating it to death. With that, all four evaporated into a cloud of smoke that seemed to flow toward the ghost manager from 7/11. As they died, I noticed something. Terry and Megami were exerting themselves far more than before.

“Your ignorance is laughable.” He held up his knife, energy erupting out of it like a hurricane, causing what little advantage Terry and Megami had left to waver. “As much as I would like to fight you myself, it would be a waste of my efforts. Especially on a—” He hesitated, “Well, I’ll just go with thinskin.”

Doc ran to help Terry while Chad went to Megami. I could hear Rachel yell, “No you aren’t ready!” Then Jacob lept from the shadows onto the creature attacking Megami.

“I’ve got this one Chadrick. Go help the Doctor and Terry won’t you?” Chad might as well have made skid marks with how fast he swerved.

Rachel suddenly yelled as she bolted for Jacob, “Doctor, Joseph needs help! A leech got him!” He jumped back, loaded something into his gun, took aim, and shot me in the left bicep with flawless precision.

“He’ll be good to go in a few minutes.” He continued his barrage of punches, finally taking down some sort of tall, bulky, hairy man, which puffed into a cloud of smoke just as the others had.

By now, the cocky grin plastered across the manager’s face had morphed into bloodlust, “Alright, this is annoying.” The man morphed into another figure and the rest of the entities disappeared into a cloud of hazy black mist. As the fog cleared I saw what the thing had turned into, it was a woman, but I can’t for the life of me think of any of her details. She may have had brunette, blonde or red hair. She might’ve been beautiful or ugly, I have no clue, I can’t even remember how she sounded. But she spoke with an heir of confidence akin to Abraham. “I need you all to shut up about now.” With a wave of her hand, I could barely breathe. The air was thinner than a sheet of paper. All I could do was fall to the ground to conserve whatever air I could manage. Everyone but Terry and Jacob collapsed to the floor, suffocating.

“You dumb bitch, I don’t need air to kill you!” Jacob lunged at the woman.

“Silly me, I forgot how you can manipulate quantum physics. I have something else for you then.” With another quick wave of her hand, the floor sprouted a hand, catching Jacob, the floor rapidly forming a dome over him, “I can’t believe you, even with our history Kenet? I’m hurt.” Her tone flat as that sheet of paper from earlier.

He stretched his tentacles to their limit, but she stood just out of range. Slowly turning his head side to side, he responded, “DIE!” He grabbed a USPM soldier in range with a tentacle, throwing them at Maerod. Flying back a few feet, she walked over to the suffocating commander with a broken visor, picking him up by his arm, the one he’d lost in the bunker. A metal bending sounded as she compressed his metal prosthetic, flinging the man at Terry. The last of the commander’s breath was lost to him as he landed back first on the floor.

“Are you just here to protect her replacement?”

Terry ripped the metal arm from his socket, creaking forward, he hit her in the face with the now scrap metal. She caught it in her hand, ripping it from him along with the tentacle holding it before throwing it at his face so hard it shattered in two.

“Give me something! You could’ve had Charles deal with me. You stubborn fuck.”

Terry swung another tentacle at her, it looked like it was going to connect until it hit an invisible wall.

Tucker’s voice rang out, “CLOSE YOUR EYES!” Just before I slammed them shut, I saw the commander struggling to get out of the way. A burst of light flashed through my eyelids. When I opened them again, I saw Maerod missing an arm, “Well shit I really thought that’d do it. Matter manipulation right? Jokes on you, photons ain’t matter.”

“GODS! YOU FUCK!” Maerod screamed.

The commander forced out, “Reload!” Looking around, I saw bits and pieces of Dexter and  Tucker where their armor was missing. Two canisters popped out of thin air, then the sound of frag rounds being loaded into a grenade launcher. Before they could aim, Maerod changed form into Takeo, swords and all. I felt a burst of wind hit me in the face and I could breathe normally again. Jacob’s chamber collapsed and I saw his shadow burst from the ground.

“Man that was a close one, I was watching our vitals and we were all nearly out of air. I may need to talk to the team about a more effective vacuum for our helmets.” Dexter said.

“No time to talk, just aim and fire.”

I was dizzy, “No, he’s too quick it’s a waste of ammo.” My voice felt far away, and I couldn’t even shout. I closed my eyes for the flash and when I opened them again everyone was in a different spot except Terry. But the Takeo impersonator was gone and now there was a new figure standing on top of Megami. “Doc.” I could barely get out a whisper, “Doc, something’s wrong.” My breaths were shallow and my lungs were heavy. Fire ran up my left arm and it looked like there was a blood infection making its way to my heart. I took as deep of a breath in as I could and did my best to shout, “Doc.” It was only slightly louder, but loud enough for him to turn toward me.

Everything was the audible equivalent of tunnel vision. Tunnel hearing? “Keep this thing off my back, I need to help Joseph.” He threw down some kind of revolver and charged toward me. He felt my forehead, “41 degrees, gods, I need to get you something.” When he looked down to grab something from his bag he noticed my arm, “So you know, this will likely be extremely painful.”

“I think I know why you failed medical school,” I stammered in a daze.

“Medical school?” He paused as he pulled out a small canister, “I’m joking. But seriously, I need you to take these, chase it with this.” He threw a few pills into my mouth, then forced me to choke down a drink. It slid down my throat like a boot in a bog.

“That didn’t hurt too bad,” I said after the drink finally made it to my stomach.

“That wasn’t the painful part.” He retorted before stabbing me in the arm with a syringe and sucking the blood out of my arm. Now, I have gotten my blood drawn a few different times, they tend to sanitize the area before sticking the needle in and letting the blood slowly push itself out. But this, it felt like he had put the sanitation onto the needle, then in one fluid motion stuck the needle into my arm, sucked my blood, and pulled the needle out.

“Yep!” I said through gritted teeth, “That was pretty fucking painful.” I maintained my composure. After all, I had broken multiple ribs on multiple occasions, so relatively speaking, I had felt worse pains.

“You’re not going to be the same after today Joseph, I will tell you that right now. However, I can stabilize you right now to prevent you from… combusting.” 

“What was that?” My heart rate picked up.

He turned his head, “Rachel I require your assistance!”

“No, what the fuck was that part about me combusting?”

Launching her bone spear into the currently unidentifiable entity, Rachel made her way to us. Gunfire sounded along with a few explosions as she came over. “What do you need? His soul looks weary.”

“You said he was bitten by a vampire correct? I do not have the tools to make an antidote. I require your alchemy.”

“Fool, there’s no such thing as an antidote for vampirism, we can stop it before he combusts though.”

“SERIOUSLY GUYS, WHAT THE FUCK!?”

Rachel continued without missing a beat, “I take it you drew his blood?” Rachel raised an eyebrow. Doc handed the blood sample to her, “This should be plenty, I just need you to help hold that thing back. The conjuration process for some of the chemicals will take a bit of time.”

“Understood.” Doc turned to run back into the fight but before he could I grabbed his arm. I could see the sneer in his posture, “If you do that again I may accidentally kill you. What is it?”

“This is the gun Tucker gave me. I think he said they’re hollow point rounds with that chemical he made inside of them. You’ve got faster reaction time than me and I’m pretty much out for the count right now.” Whatever he had given me seemed to put some moisture in my mouth, “I’m really hoping it’ll put her down.”

He nodded and took the pistol. As he ran, I noticed the familiar appearance of a demonic type creature fighting everyone. But it had more black scales than the two in the bunker.

Rachel sat next to me with multiple vials, bottles, and bowls scattered around, “As I said, this isn’t a short process, so you can relax a little.” Entities must have fewer nerves than humans or something. Her voice could almost be considered relaxed.

“I’d be a whole lot more relaxed if you told me what that whole combustion deal is.”

She sighed as she continued mixing, “Listen, Joseph, I’m not going to let that happen to you. But I’ll be honest, your soul is growing at an exponential rate alongside rapid DNA modification. Your soul was so weak before, if it’s left to expand, it’ll grow too big for your body to handle and you’ll, well… spontaneously combust. If you didn’t have as much paranormal contact as you have, you’d already be gone; but your soul has become malleable, akin to Chad’s.”

I was utterly speechless and ultimately decided to just watch the fight before my brain could go into full panic mode. Terry was finally able to move by this point, he seemed a little smaller but I couldn’t quite tell. He attempted to stab Maerod multiple times with his tentacles. She? Managed to dodge every single one while also blocking a bullet one of the soldiers fired. Jacob couldn’t seem to get an opening so he jumped down at her from the ceiling in an attempt to surprise her. Instead, she caught him by the throat. All that could be heard for a short moment was a cracking of bones. With that, Jacob fell limp in her hand. Just before she threw him to the side, Jacob grinned wildly. Having finally found his opening, he morphed into his shadow state and went under Maerod’s outstretched arm. This only caused her to grin as she lit herself on fire.

Jacob shifted back into his material state, using Maerod as a wall, he kicked off of her to get some distance. That was when I noticed one of Terry’s tentacles headed straight for her. The angle was perfect, and she couldn’t even lunge now that she was airborne. I thought they’d finally won until she shifted into a bulk of a man and caught both the tentacle and Jacob. The reach on the creature was insane. She smashed Jacob and Terry together before changing back into her manager facade. She held up her knife, and then coughed, spitting out some blood. “What the.” She said before the capable soldiers fired at her with their beams. Narrowly dodging them, she jumped into the path of Doc’s line of sight. He fired and she managed to only get scraped by the bullet. 

“Just sit down and die already.” Megami wheezed. Then nearly a dozen daggers came flying at Maerod. She dodged, which prompted the soldiers and Doc to take aim and fire. The room went still as a cloud of smoke erupted. White noise was all I could hear. As my ears adjusted, I heard coughing from where I last saw Maerod.

“What in the—” She succumbed to another coughing fit, “What is this, I don’t understand.”

Tucker spoke next, “Someone hit Maerod? It shouldn’t be acting this fast.”

“What are you talking about?” She choked, spitting out a mouthful of blood. I could finally see her as the smoke passed. She was covered in pockets of what looked like the puss that covered Terry’s tentacles back in the bunker.

“Well, you’re some sad excuse for a god aren’t you? Still injured by man-made weapons. It’s a chemical I cooked up a while back, guess it can hurt gods too huh?” Tucker said with a cocky chuckle, “That hit you way harder and faster than it did Kenet, guess you’re weaker than him.”

“Preposterous!” She could barely talk anymore, “A man-made chemical hurt me? What’s really going on?”

“I’m being serious, miss. I made it specifically to target whatever makes you paranormal things, well, paranormal. Just cause we don’t understand something, doesn’t mean we can’t fight it.” Tucker let out a short chuckle.

Terry spoke next, “Let’s leave her to suffer. You’re the only one who knows a cure right?”

“Well, me and that skinwalker over there.” Tucker pointed to Rachel who was still deep in her work.

“There shouldn’t be a problem then. She deserves to suffer.”

The commander spoke up, “Hold on now. We need to bring her with us so we have proof she’s really dead. I hope that won’t be too much trouble for you.” He tried to maintain his professional tone, probably didn’t help that Terry and Maerod were playing catch with him not five minutes before.

“Yeah yeah, whatever. As long as she can suffer some more I don’t care.” Terry looked to Maerod, “Well I guess we’ve finally seen what you really look like huh.” She lay on the ground, taking shallow breaths. “That’s what I thought.” Is the last thing he got out before collapsing to the floor. The doctor rushed to his side to help him.

“No need to fear, he’s still alive.” Hearing that caused an involuntary sigh.

“I still need five more minutes.” Rachel was deep in concentration and likely didn’t even hear what was said.

“Well, it’s not like anyone else is here, so ensure you do it right,” Doc said. She nodded in response.

“I just don’t understand how it affected her so quickly. She was clearly strong, I figured one hit wouldn’t be enough to stop her. So five kickin’ in this soon… somethin’ ain’t right.” Tucker sounded worried.

“Those copies were all connected to the same soul. Joseph hit one before we got here.” Rachel said, waiting for a couple of chemicals to properly combine.

“He also kinda like, hit another copy before we met up with Rache. I don’t understand how this stuff works, but I remember that.” Chad added.

“Maybe the chemical followed the soul or something back to her? I’m gonna be honest the government still doesn’t even have scientific proof to back up souls. I’m just takin’ a shot in the dark here.”

A couple of minutes passed and Terry was standing again. “There we are. Take it easy Terry, you’re still in rough shape so I need to take you to my shop before I can fix you up properly.”

“Alright Joseph, you can take out those earplugs now.” I did and she readied me, “I’m not going to lie, this is going to hurt like a bitch and a half. But it’s better than you dying.” She pulled out a rag and handed it to me, “Put this in your mouth, you’re going to feel a burning sensation as it goes in, then you’ll go cold. It should be able to deactivate the virus. But, any mutations it’s already given your body and soul are permanent. Get ready.”

She downplayed the pain. Out of all the ribs I’ve broken, the number of times I’ve broken my arms, and the one time a huge chunk of meat was ripped from my body. This had to be the worst pain of my life. Like a group of fire ants crawled into my veins and started eating from the inside out. As the liquid finished entering my body, it felt as though all those ants turned into liquid nitrogen, freezing my arm. Within a few minutes, the pain dissipated enough to the point I could focus on other things. Like the conversation going on.

“Yeah, this was definitely the entrance.” I heard Dexter say, “My helmet’s analysis is coming back clean as if there is nothing beyond this wall that it can detect. No hallway… nothing.”

Rachel spoke to me, dragging my attention away from the discussion, “You should be able to stand now. Just take it easy since you aren’t yet used to your muscle density.”

I stood up slowly, realizing that I felt far better than before. My muscles didn’t ache and the amount of force I had to use to stand up was minimal. “So what’s going on?”

Tucker gave me a once over, now much more visible, “In basic terms, the door you three came through is now walled off. Even Dexter’s helmet is saying there ain’t shit beyond the wall. There’re no windows in here so it ain’t like we can just hop out one to safety.”

“Why not try using your lasers to shoot us out?” I suggested.

This time the commander responded, “Oh yeah, why didn’t I think of that?” He wasn’t trying to hide the sarcasm, and I appreciated that “Keep your dumb ass suggestions to yourself, ignorant civie.”

I tried again, “Alright, well in video games, there’s typically a hidden exit with a bunch of monsters in it. Maybe we can look for one, who knows?”

“Oh yeah, that makes a whole lot—” Just before Jacob could finish his sarcastic retort, Dexter interrupted.

“Um, sir? There appears to be a hidden exit underground leading back to the throne.” He almost sounded terrified of cutting him off.

“Well, guess you’re useful for something after all.”

“What happened to that ‘You’re just a dumb citizen’ shit you were talking about?” I asked.

He grunted, turning to walk towards the throne with everyone else.

Chad deadlifted the throne and tossed it aside.

Terry reached a tentacle over to pick up Maerod, “Hold up.” Said Tucker, “Unless you’re trying to die I wouldn’t recommend doing that. Those pus pockets are filled with my chemical now. If one of ‘em pops… Just, let us handle her. By us, I of course mean you, Dexter.”

He let out a sigh, “No, I carried the last one remember? It’s your turn.”

Tucker groaned, before flipping Dexter the bird and throwing Maerod over his shoulder.

————————————————–

“You know? Given everything I’ve smelled so far today, this isn’t too bad.” I said after about ten minutes of walking. “Seriously the entrance was putrid. Compared to that, this just smells like one of Terry’s parties.”

“I don’t have much of a sense of smell myself.” Said Megami, “But holy shit. I just want out of here.”

“Yeah, I bet you’re used to the scent of bath salts and candles huh,” I said. Her glare was reason enough for me to look straight ahead.

Tucker chortled, “Guess this ain’t the story where you get the girl. Maybe in your next arc.”

“Everyone just shut up please, I can’t stand all this noise.” Megami groaned, rubbing her temples.

With that, all that could be heard was the sloshing of water at our feet, along with the occasional groan from Maerod. After another five minutes, the sound of running greeted us from ahead. Thankfully, since the soldiers took the lead, they all fired at once, and the creature splashed to the ground. All that could be heard was the sound of echoing gunfire.

“Hey, Joseph. Here’s your gun back.” Doc whispered to me, handing the pistol over.

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” I responded, putting it in my gun holster. 

Wait, when did I get a gun holster? Have I been putting it on my belt this whole time for no reason? Eh, whatever.

 As we walked, I realized I could see far better than I should have. The only lights were weak ones coming off the two functioning visors of the soldiers, but I was able to see like the moon was out. I looked up but we were still underground. Must be a bonus from that infection. “Hey, should I be seeing better?” I asked Rachel.

“That’s likely from the mild regeneration you got. It’s enhancing your entire body with whatever extra calories you have. You’re gonna be wanting to eat more protein, especially red meat. Just make sure you eat more of everything and you shouldn’t have too many problems. Unless you get to the point of starving.” She said.

“Cool beans,” I said with the least chalance I could manage.

“I tell you that you have regeneration abilities and that’s your response? Now I see what Tucker meant.” She responded.

We finally came across a ladder after about an hour and a half of walking. The soldiers went up first, then Terry, so on and so forth until I was the last one. As I approached the top, I could see the stars, I was hungry as hell and happy to finally be out.

“We’re lighting this bitch up!” I heard the commander say as I got to the top.

“We still need to get David out of there,” Terry responded.

“That thing is a living maze. If you go in, you won’t be coming back out. That means you’ll be dying along with him.” The commander countered.

“Yeah, I’m just gonna like, start up the car. You guys can just kinda talk it out and stuff.” Chad said, heading the short distance to his tank of a car.

“Hey guys, there’s no need to go in. I’m right here.” I could make out the faintest outline from where the voice came.

“Alright. Light this bitch up then.” Terry said.

Jacob started talking to his helmet, “Johnny, this is Staff Sergeant Jay, we need that white phosphorus drop right about now. Our suits are pretty torn up so we lost ours somewhere in the building. Yeah, you’re clear, no friendlies inside. Don’t forget to tell Sergeant Major Whitney about our success. Yeah, we have Maerod here, she’s barely alive so we need the special cuffs ready when we get up there. Alright, over and out.”

With that, a blazing fire landed on top of the building. The soldiers were off on ropes up to their plane or jet or helicopter, whatever they were using right after.

“Hop in guys, there’s enough room if Jacob just shadows the car,” Chad said, revving the engine.

“I’m gonna take a nap, so keep it down,” I said after everyone piled into the oversized jeep.

That nap turned into a two-day R&R where I just slept. After waking up, everything seemed to go back to whatever passed for normal. Terry had a party while I was passed out, and there was a new piece of equipment that Tucker had left with Terry. It was addressed to me. Some more ammo and a special cleaning kit to maintain the pistol he left me. I decided, then would be as good a time as any to clean it up.