Fan Fiction ❯ Frailty ❯ Someday ( Chapter 9 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

"Frailty"


Chapter nine- "Someday"


"Solemme' get this straight" Harvey begun while tightly wrapping a bandage retrieved from a nearby cabinet around Raven's calve.
"You accidentally offed that damned maniac, Stidewall, and the guilt nearly got you killed, but at the same time you're saying that there's this vicious alter-ego growing inside you that in due time'll turn you into some starch-raving maniac if it isn't taken care of"
Raven's eyes fell as her far-fetched tale was relayed to her. Indeed, she had spilled the whole thing to the only lucid companion she had acquired on this strange night. At that given time, her mentality had been one of, I'm debating on whether or not I should even have the right to live, why the Hell not? , but now hearing it expel from another person's lips, she couldn't help but feel as though she had said too much.
"And the only thing that can supposedly cure you is the ghost of some crazy-ass doctor that appears out of a film-projectorand this is your reason for not coming with me?"


Dreading that she was loosing his trust, the sorceress begun to defend her story, "I swear , twice I've gotten upset in this place, passed out and when I woke up"
"I know, I know ." Alding breathed an exasperated sigh, having heard this for the third time, "When you woke up, you were surrounded by mutilated bodies and have no memory of what happened."
"I know it sounds crazy, but"
"Lifting a two-ton metal detector from the ground with nothing but your mind is pretty fuckin' crazy in my book," He again cut her off mid-sentence, "But you did it anyway."
With his voice lapsing into a more inviting tone, Raven felt permitted to again look him in the eyes, and did so.
"So, do you believe me?"
The corrections officer paused his handiwork to exhale sharply and offer a thoughtful shrug of his shoulders. "Why not? I've seen everything else today" He replied, then pulled the bandage into a holding knot, causing his accomplice to wince.
" 'At oughta' do it. Think you can stand?"


Raven face-faulted at the thought of using her wounded leg, but knew it was in her best interest, especially if Alding was about to say what she was dreading.
After taking a deep breath and shutting her eyes tight, she pushed herself up. Her entire body tensed as a throbbing pain shot through her calve, but she did not fall. With a rather hard bite of her lip, she ignored the jolts of pain and held the upright position strong.
It took every ounce of this solemn determination to begin working the injured limb in a motion similar to walking. A sensation not unlike pens and needles flourished through her entire leg at first, then gradually died down to a dull pulse.
"I think I'll be alright" She commented while reaching down to gingerly rub the afflicted calve.
"Good." Harvey replied, subsequently causing Raven's heart to skip. The word wasn't wholesomely uninvited, but provided a large indication of what he was about to say.
"'Cause lemme' tell ya'" He continued in a sharp, solemn voice, "You can do whatever the fuck you want, but I want no part of you finding this cure ."


Easily picking up the look of disappointment, mistrust, self-loathing and a wide array of other negative emotions in the telekentic's face, he hectically picked back up, "Now, that's not to say I don't believe what yer' telling me, I got no reason to think you're lying, it's just" His voice trailed as the memories of his home away from Carnate island begun to flood his mind.
"It's just that I got a little girl back homefar away from all this shit" Raven's hopeless expression quickly melted away at hearing this.
"Really?" She asked, fixing her eyes on his face. Rather than reply verbally, Harvey reached into his pocket and fished out a small, worn out photograph that depicted the corrections officer next to a tall, particularly attractive brunette woman and between them a girl, looking to be about five or six years.
There was something different about his persona in this picture. Granted, there was still the narrow face and cut, cold-looking eyes, but caught within the confines of this photo, there was something that the present day Harvey Alding completely lacked. There was life.
There was a whole, happy future within his smile. All of that looked to have been completely drained out of him now.


"You had a family." She mused while studying the picture closer. "The motherdid she?"
Harvey shook his head deniably. "No, it wasn't some sappy-ass tragedy. She just, ah"
He fell silent in the wake of searching for the right word. When nothing fitting came to mind, he exhaled sharply, shook his head and continued in a drained tone, "Things just didn't work out. She filled for divorce, got full custody of our kidthe whole nine yards."
"I'm sorry" Raven said remorsefully, suddenly wishing she hadn't queried so far. "It was just that the three of you looked so happy in this picture" Her gaze fixed back onto the photograph, more specifically Harvey, whom scoffed, "It always starts out happily." He allowed himself to break from the morbidly realistic moment to smile inwardly, "Y'know the saying about Marriage. 'The first six months you could eat 'em alive, the second six months you wish you had.'"
Raven chuckled subtly at the joke and handed the photo back to him, her eyes fixing on the contents till it was tucked back into the officer's pocket, out of sight.


"So, how did you end up here?" She asked, then quickly added, "If you don't mind telling me"
"A few things" Harvey mentally flailed briefly, looking back at the reasons he had chosen to leave his once semi-charmed life far behind. "The only visitation I got was on Sundays, and it was supervised. I never did get a good reason for why the ruling was so harsh, considering I have no criminal record and spent some time in the military during the Gulf War." His eyes cut abruptly, "A lot of my friends said that the Judge was a sham."
Raven's eyebrows raised quizzically, "A sham?"
"One guy that got real pissed off about the ruling managed to get his hands on a few legal records. Apparently the judge that made this ruling was involved in a few cases of bribery, but they were all dropped from a significant lack of evidence " he mockingly quoted the final line.
"But that shouldn't have been enough to keep you away"
"Of course it wasn't. A few weeks after I found all that shit out, she moved off out of state"
"You never found out where?"
Harvey shrugged, "Never got it clearly. First it was Oregon, then Louisiana, Arizona, then finally, come Virginia, I just gave up. Settled down there, and well" His free hand motioned over his torso, "Here I am. I wound up finding a position for a maximum security prison on a coastal isle that turned out to be some beat up, weathered old piece of shit on a creepy-ass island that has a history of homicidal violence longer than the friggin' Golden Gate"


It wasn't difficult to catch the word Virginia and allow it to become the subject of her next question, "Virginia? You mean we're in Virginiathe state?". Harvey interrupted himself to absorb the obvious query.
"Uh yeah " He replied, "Maryland, Virginia, Carnate's a small island off the coastwhat'd you think?". Raven shook her head negatively. "I'm not sure. Guess I zoned out for a minute." She lied, not sure whether to feel stupid or victimized. It seemed the more she learned about Carnate and it's exact location, the more puzzled and, in more cases than one, frustrated she became.
"Well, anyway , I've worked here for close to a year and a half now, so I figured that it would've been a good time to pick back up and start looking for her again, then low and behold, this happens."


"It makes no sense" Raven muttered, turning the entire subject of Alding's lost child over and over in her mind, "What your ex-wife is doing is illegal, and the child supportthere should've been some way for you to have kept track of them, you can't look me in the face and tell me that the entire world was against you!" Her voice was beginning to rise and she knew she was starting to aimlessly rant, but couldn't find it in herself to care. The never-ending uncertainty of what was in store for her and all the pieces of the puzzle that simply didn't fit had again begun to take their toll, "It's just like this island, nothing comes together! How I got here, why none of my emotions effect the environment, what these things are and where they're coming from, none of it makes any sense! " Her risen voice lapsed to a shrill scream at the end and left not only the office, but the entire depot silent.


Harvey solemnly locked his gaze onto Raven's un-moving form, but did not receive a likewise response. The telekinetic's face had fallen toward the floor as she drew in unsteady breaths, not attempting to recompose herself so much as simply stewing in the outburst's aftermath.
Whatever mental activity busied itself with occupying her mind was abruptly cut short when Alding abruptly spoke, "Well, looks like my rejection's found a way outta' your system"
He smiled inwardly as Raven's head rose to lock eyes with his own.
"I wanna' stick with you till the end, but I swore I'd find her this time, and I can't risk my life for someone I've only known a few hours over my own kid."
"I" Her eyes dropped once more as she trailed a mere word into her reply, "I understand"
"No you don't." Harvey retorted while approaching the office door, "You can't. No one figures it out till they've had children of their own. It's the point when life stops revolving around you , and if it starts to again"
He turned to face her, and in that instant, for the smallest conceivable moment, the cut, cold eyes that were Harvey Alding's softened in the slightest bit, "If it starts to again, you may as well put that kid up for adoption, 'cause you're no parent. You're nothing."


With no further emphasis or explanation necessary, he exited and disappeared from sight. Raven digested the lecture only briefly before following his lead into the supply hangar.
"I came in through the second floor from the guard walls, it was pretty nasty on the ground, so by now I get the feeling the entire place'll be just crawling with bad guys, but it's the quickest way outta' here." Harvey explained while leading off toward the series of corridors he had come from, "and I'm not too worried about 'em. Me and the uzi, here have a pretty good friendship going." He raised the sub machine gun and, in effect, face-faulted at seeing Raven struggle to keep her own hefty shotgun held steady.
"You could use a bit of a lighter gun, what with that hurt leg and all." The corrections officer noted.
"And where would I find one?"
He pondered briefly before producing a simple, yet renovating thought, "Stidewall's still in the hangar, right?"
Caught off-guard by the sudden subject-switch, Raven flailed slightly before answering, "Yeah"
Harvey did not bother to remain still and outline his query before spinning on his heal and striding back toward the hangar.
"Wait a second! What does Stidewall have to do with any of this?" The sorceress probed while procuring a close pursuit.
"His gun, that's what." Came a hurried reply, "He has an old forty-four that never left his side. It's a light side-arm, but damn does it ever pack a punch."


Raven froze momentarily, though not utterly disgusted, finding herself slightly surprised at the officer's disrespect for the dead.
"Hey!" She called after him while following his lead into the center of the hangar. "You can't just take his gun away from him!"
Alding stopped and turned to face her just feet shy of his former employer's corpse.
"Why?" He asked, "It's not like the lunatic has very much to shoot at these days"
"Because" She trailed when no logical reason came to mind, but quickly redoubled her argument with a stout I don't need a reason attitude.
"Because it's wrong! Don't you have any respect for the deceased?!?"
Harvey grinned nonchalant before answering, "Nope. Not really. You shouldn't either" He waved his hand down toward Stidewall's prone form, islanded in a pool of blood, "Not for some raging psychopath that tried to cut you down with an autogun."
"But you knew him before, he lost his sanity, didn't you?" Raven retorted.
"It wasn't much of an improvement, Stidewall's always been a jackass, straight up."
Raven quieted, her moral dilemma beginning to satiate itself. "It justdoesn't seem right" She murmured, "It's entirely my fault he's dead, and now I'm taking something he cherished in life?"


Harvey extended his hand outward, the forty four clenched within.
"In a situation like this, right and wrong shouldn't come into play. Not when it comes to keeping yourself alive." After the gun was accepted, he again gestured toward the deceased warden, "And as for Stidewall, his death wasn't exactly a despairing tragedyIt's not like you blew away Doc Severson. This was a slow-minded prison warden that went insane in a very bizarre chain of events."
"Fine." Raven gave in while examining the firearm's barrel, "I'll use it, but I won't like it"
"Deal with it. We can't afford to waste any more time in hereI'm surprised those things haven't already sniffed us out, and butchered us" After adjusting the cast around his arm, Alding turned and begun the venture toward the exit. Raven paused only to glance back at Stidewall's body. Something to say stirred within the sorceress' mind, but died upon her lips, and with that absence of mind so wholesomely present, she left the scene in it's own ominous silence.


-The prison's outermost layer of guard walls-

Raven was more or less content with the particularly short window of time required to reach the prison's exit onto the guard walls, but it was miniscule compared to her anxiety of reaching the
Penitentiary's limits and being once more left on her own.


The walls themselves distantly stretched outward and massed together in what would, from an overhead view, resemble a massive maze. On either side of each wall, roughly ten feet apart, were industrial searchlights, not unlike those found on the guard tower. As Raven studied them, it struck her that several were positioned in a manner as to cast their light onto the wall itself.
Just as she attempted to piece things together, a glass-shattering screech ripped through the once serene night air, shortly followed by a complementary curse from Harvey.
"I knew we couldn't get by without them catching on!" He barked while readying the sub machine gun.
Just as the first machete beast met with the surface of the wall, it was plowed down by a hail of gunfire.
After repeating the process with two more and disabling another by blasting it's legs out from underneath it, the corrections officer fell back, more or less pushed by the consistent reinforcements arriving by the second.
"God Damn!" He groaned, "It's like for every one I kill, two more take it's place!"


Raven sparred momentarily to hold the brigade off with gunfire of her own before replying, "Their coming from a dimensional rift!"
"A dimensional what ?"
A bullet issued from Raven's forty-four ripped through the abdomen of the last machete beast to have arrived on top of the wall, putting an end to the first wave. With no time to muse over her handiwork, she clarified, "A dimensional rift! It's right down there!" Then pointed toward the ground, structured as a baseball field, the infield of which was completely dominated by what one could have only assumed to be a bottomless pit.
"What the Hell" Harvey flailed while watching a new horde of beasts descend from the hole.
"Is there any end to them?"
Raven shook her head sharply, "I doubt it."
"Then how do we stop them? We definitely can't get by if they keep comin' on like this !"
He pointed toward the parade of monsters, whom had reached the foot of the wall.
"I'm not completely s" She cut her reply off mid-sentence as the solution presented itself.
"The spotlights!"
"What?"
"I'm not positive, but I don't think they like the light. Maybe if we shined the spotlights on them"
"Whatever you're going to do" Harvey interrupted her explanation, "Don't waste time explaining it to me. They're gaining on us!"
Raven followed his gaze to see that the first few beasts had breached the wall. Adhering to his advice, she cleared the distance to the nearest searchlight and swung it around to face the intruding beast, blindly fumbling for the power switch all the while.


Abruptly during the decapitated creature's stalking approach, an almost inaudible click arose from the sorceress' direction, quickly followed by an obscenely bright diameter of light hitting home directly onto it's chest.
In instant response, it released a piercing scream and shrank back, then shortly there after, burst into flames.
"I knew it!" Raven exclaimed excitedly. "We need to shine the light onto the rift, that will get them to stop!"
Harvey, only listening enough to get the general point, hung his arm over the edge of the wall and begun firing into the now medium sized army of beasts that had accumulated on the baseball field.
"I'll hold them off, just get on with it!" He ordered.


As to prepare herself for the worst, Raven checked the forty four's ammunition before starting toward the next spotlight. When she indeed reached her destination, she was presented with another problem; whether to shine the light onto the rift or the beasts. Harvey was an excellent shot, but his ammo wouldn't last forever, and with a broken arm, reloading was near to impossible. On the other hand, the rift had produced well-sized plethora of enemies in less than a minute, and putting in end to it now would most definitely lay the bigger problem to rest.
Little did the debating titan know that a beast whom had strayed away from the large group of it's peers and Harvey had failed to notice was about to present her with an option of another kind.


"EEK!" Raven yelped in surprise as the pallid freak-show came bounding over the edge of the wall, completely clearing the full gauge of her height and landing gracefully behind her.
"Damn it!" The telekinetic cursed as she whirled around to neutralize the new-found threat. It, however, had other plans in mind.
Just as the forty-four was raised in defense, it's owner was hit in the shoulder by a looping roundhouse, that though only succeeding to leave a scratch, sent her stumbling in reverse and eventually over the wall.
For the second occasion of the night, her shoulders and back connected violently with the ground in the wake of a lengthy plummet. This time, however, it was too much for her enfeebled endurance to bear. She picked her torso up, but could not maintain.
The last thing she would see before blacking out was a steady stream of bullets burrowing into throat of her attacker, nearly thirty feet above her.


-End chapter 9-