Fan Fiction ❯ Frailty ❯ Them bones ( Chapter 10 )

"Frailty"

Chapter 10- "Them bones"

Disclaimer-

The song "Them Bones" was written by Lane Staley and produced by the band Alice in Chains. I had nothing to do with it's creation.

It was a song that Raven couldn't pinpoint, but found familiar as she slowly begun to emerge from slumber. Despite only being half-conscious, she could tell that it was not coming from within her head. A very slight degree of static that accompanied the background rhythm, courtesy of an electric guitar, maintained that notion. Her eyes begun to crack open when the lyrics begun,

"I believe them bones are me.

Some say we're born into the grave.

…I feel so alone. Gonna' end up a

Big ole pile o' them bones."

It wasn't until the conclusion of the first verse came to be did the realization that she was in a particularly cramped space settle in. After turning her head slightly, the sound of water colliding forcefully with glass came into earshot.

"Dust rise right on over my time.

Empty fossil of the new scene.

…I feel so alone. Gonna' wind up a

Big ole pile o' them bones."

She was in a vehicle. No two ways about it. A radio playing, rainwater hitting the wind-shield, it all came together, and in her better judgement, it was the cab of a truck, assumed directly from the discomfort and the awkward way of which she was laid out, but the sorceress was still too drowsy to positively determine.

"Toll due. Bad dream come true.

I lie dead, gone underneath a red sky.

…I feel so alone. Gonna' end up a

Big ole pile o' them bones…"

As the actual lyrics came to an end and the song moved into repetition to be prolonged, a full gauge of her surroundings, along with memory of what last happened to her, settled. She had fallen off the prison walls and, judging from the dull soreness in her back, hit the astro-turf below with a cruel impact. At some point or another, she was rescued from the beasts' grasp, and whisked away to a relatively safe location. The weather outside was nasty, so she must have been placed inside the truck's dry confines, the radio left on in an obvious attempt to startle her from unconsciousness. There was only one piece of the puzzle that was missing.

Harvey, the very one whom had accomplished all of this. With the corrections officer in mind, she grasped onto a side of the passenger's seat and pulled herself into a sitting position, getting slightly light-headed with the more leverage she gained.

After rubbing her eyes, she gazed through the rear windshield, peering hard past the driving rain to get some bearings on her location.

It was darkness, for the most part. There was the slight outline of a fence, roughly a hundred yards directly behind the truck.

"Wait…" She whispered, "If the radio's on…" Quickly, Raven whirled around and scooted into the driver's side. Just as she had predicted, a key was in the ignition. She extended a hand, but was caught short by an afterthought.

This seemed too easy.

If Harvey had been here earlier, what kept him from capitalizing on the truck?

In the midst of a snap decision, she yanked down on the handle of the driver's side door and pushed it completely open, letting the brisk sheets of rainwater sweep over her. After dropping onto the damp earth, she knelt down beneath the still ajar door and looked ahead, seeing exactly what she feared. No tires. Taking their place were four cement blocks. She gave an exasperated sigh while recovering to her feet.

"Beautiful…"

The score seemed dire, but something kept Raven's hopes from completely draining as she looked ahead of the truck. The final prison wall was behind her. This meant she was out of the penitentiary. For good. The only thing that stood between her and the remainder of Carnate's horrors was an old, rusted fence. Before starting down a mud path that led toward the fencing, Raven threw one last glance into the cab of the truck and brandished a smile upon her face at what she saw. Harvey may have left her alone, but he sure as Hell hadn't left her defenseless. Laying directly across the cab's flooring was a rifle, with the forty-four on top of it.

She was still smiling as she reached in and extracted the sidearm, slipped it behind her waist-charm, then returned her hands to the cab to wrap them about the rifle.

As Raven went about figuring how to properly handle the gun, she caught sight of a note-card, strung to a metallic ring that was recessed on it's butt. Squinting to make out the words, she read aloud,

"Model: US M-16A1 automatic assault rifle.

Twenty round clip.

When operating fully automatic this rifle is capable of firing up to 700 rounds a minute.

Round length-5.56 mm, the shock of a round passing through even a target's minor extremities can be lethal.

Firing range- 400 meters

Muzzle velocity- 900 meters a second.

WARNING: This rifle has an extreme recoil and is not to be fired unless the butt is placed directly against the user's arm! Failure to adhere to this can result in extreme injury or death!"

Raven examined the rifle with a contortion of intrigue and caution after receiving an eye-full of the information card. Linked from it's muzzle to the butt was a leather strap, which hung loosely from the gun several inches. Thinking conservatively, she strapped the M-16 to her back and re-armed the forty-four. After taking an ammunition check on both guns (Which, like usual, was a strict hit-or-miss process.) she started for the fencing.

The conclusion of the prison wasn't the only thing Raven had awoken in close proximity to.

After crossing the fence (A large, crude gap made it as easy as slightly kneeling) she was greeted by a dirt path, beside which the ground gave way to a nearly forty foot drop. Indeed, she was standing on a large cliff, elevated above the shore. The prison had obviously been positioned here to prevent escapes. Standing a few feet shy of the edge, she leaned slightly over and looked down.

It was far from a tranquil beach-going scene. Where there should have been white sand was a series of jagged rocks that were occasionally washed over by a dark wave of ocean water. Like the rest of Carnate, it was depressing and hopeless.

Sighing heavily, Raven straightened herself up and looked down the path that twisted and wound alongside the island's edge. Raising a hand above her brow did little to help identify just where it would ultimately lead to, or if there were any secondary trails that branched away from it.

All she had was instinct and hope as she begun the exploratory venture.

Roughly ten minutes of following the same, uniform path that ran alongside the island's edge would come to pass before she would encounter a break (The rain also died down considerably in the duration of this time-frame, to nearly a light sprinkle) . Though the trail continued it's navigation around the cliff, Raven's specific location presented a single break that led into the midst of the island. More specifically, a dense thicket of dying trees. The thin cascading downpour and a midst that seemed to populate only distant areas conspired to prevent her from making out any other details. Ultimately, the telekinetic was left wondering just what she was getting herself into as she started down the path.

As she closed the distance between the thicket and herself, Raven noticed that backside of several trees, not to mention bushes and other articles of underbrush that lay on the surface outside of the path were dully illuminated by a lantern that was strung to a branch no more than four of five feet from the ground. Retrieving the source of light and holding out in front of her enabled Raven to see that the path she was exploring ended quite abruptly. In fact, the land that lay before her ended right along with it. With a cord of bewilderment struck, she continued down the trail till she met with the conclusion, and brought her eyes downward. It went on, alright, but rather than continue to head straight, the trail slopped into the surface of a deep, man-made pit, resembling that of a quarry, but taking the place of water, there was a series of dirt-hauling trucks, stationary lights set up on tri-pods, and a wide array of heavy digging equipment. In addition to all of this, dominating the center of the wall opposite the pit's entrance, there was a wide, cavernous hole, obviously a mine of some sort.

From her elevated point of a view, the scene looked to be undisturbed. There were no signs of conflict, or for that matter, even a hasty attempt of escaping, thus Raven's mind was not burdened with worry as she continued down the path. It was not until she reached the excavation pit's surface and ventured out a few feet did she catch sight of something that gave her reason to fret.

The odd, deep craters that dotted the ground had not gone un-noticed from the top of the slope, however with a lack of illumination, it was difficult to tell just how far into the earth they ventured.

As the titan stood over the first deep, widely circumfranced hole, she noted in that ominous instant, that it seemed to go on forever. Just as she began to ponder over whether or not to drop the lantern down the tunnel, simply to see if, in fact, it ran perpetually, a low, violent rumbling shuddered over the earth, unsettling much of the digging equipment. Struggling to keep on her feet, Raven scanned the immediate vicinity for the miniature earth-quake's cause, seeing nothing till her eyes came to rest on the entrance to the mines. She would later claim that what she saw in that instance was nearly identical to the trademark under-ground movement of the "Graboids" from an old early nineties move called "Tremors". In light, the analogy would be quite accurate.

What approached from the foot of the mines was indeed, barely underneath the surface, burrowing in such a way that it flung a trail of topsoil onto the earth, which told a third-party exactly where it was headed.

In Raven's case, it was moving directly toward her at an almost blinding speed.

Heeding this ample warning, Raven side-strafed out of the line of fire inches before it reached her, and not a moment too soon. A split second following the titan's dodge, her burrowing assailant revealed itself by bursting out from the ground like an erupting geyser, flinging large clumps of earth and rock in every direction. Conflicting with the brief bestiary she had encountered, this creature had a very scare amount of details. To paraphrase, it looked like an inordinarily tall humanoid, mummified in straight-jackets and a series of looping brass chains that hung from it's form and dangled about in full feet. Threateningly, they swung about when it made a sudden or violent movement. This, it did plenty of, as it's new-found prey would soon discover.

After a brief episode of sporadically thrashing around, it begun to slowly revolve, picking up speed with each second till each chain that strayed from it's frame was swung completely out. The lethality of these chains would be all too discovered when Raven misjudged the distance set between the creature and her to be safe, and was just as promptly nailed across the face, which sent her tumbling over in reverse. Wincing with a dull throb that pulsated where the chain-link had come to land, Raven drug herself away from the psychotic rinse-cycle before her and shrugged the M-16 from her back. Sure to keep the rifle's butt stable against the ground, she placed aim on the creature's lower extremities -- the only part of it that seemed to remain still longer than a second, and yanked down on the trigger, accidentally raising the muzzle thereafter.

An abrupt explosion of gunfire erupted from the barrel and, rather than simply sink into the intended target, blasted ninety percent of it's torso region into a flurry of thick, bright green bodily fluid, chunks of torn muscle and smoked straight-jacket material. What little remained intact slumped back into the hole. Raven remained on the dirt ground for full minutes, letting the throb in her face die down, before recovering to her feet and returning the M-16 to it's space on her back. She would spare another minute to retrieve the lantern before starting for the mines.

The twisting mass of tunnels that made up the cavernous mining area were narrow, interconnected at almost every turn, which made them appear more and more as though it was all some big, nightmarish maze, and seemed to have a thick, ominous darkness that Raven's lantern did little to banish. A low, ambient creak was all it took for her to completely lose her nerve and subsequently search every immediate square inch for the noise's cause. In gradual success, nearly each corridor of the mines would be searched, proven to be a dead-end, discovered, found to be a meaningless link to another cavern, and so on. Nearly a half hour after entering the mines came to pass before she would receive a break. Whilst approaching a break to the right, she noted that much of the coming tunnel was bathed in a pale, bright luminescence.

It was that sight that caused her to hastily clear the remaining distance, and lose grip on the once cautious mindset. As she rounded the corner and fled into the next tunnel, her feet met with the cold, clammy sensation of a deep puddle. Surely enough, when the titan dropped her head, she was greeted by the sight of her feet, completely submerged in water. Disgusting water, from the looks of it. The source of illumination, which reflected on the consistently rippling surface, revealed itself to be a twin halogen work-light, positioned on a tripod, not unlike those found outside. Drawing closer, she noticed that it gave off a most uncomfortable radiance of heat, but that observation was dropped quickly when her eyes took in the area she was about to enter.

Nearly doubling in size of the largest tunnel she had been down, it was plain to see that this was not intended as a corridor. A second level that inter-connected with the first through an aged ladder furthered that assumption. Piles of boxes labeled "TNT" and a plethora of discarded halogen lights also indicated that it was being used as some sort of storage. Careful not to disturb the contents, she begun to search through, behind and around the boxes for something that may come in assistance. Outside of a clip-on halogen flashlight, which quickly replaced the lantern, she was coming up empty-handed.

A shrill shriek that echoed from the explored tunnels cut Raven's activities short and made her blood run cold. Throughout the night, she had heard a collection of heart-stopping wails, screams and groans, but this took the prize. Wheeling around, she raised the magnum, ready to pull the trigger on the first living thing to breach the foot of the tunnel, however this intent would quickly dissolve upon seeing just what it was that she was up against.

To say that a fair-sized brigade of monstrosities had entered into Raven's specific area would be a daft understatement. Nothing short of an army of machete' beasts and syringe chimps came flooding from the cavern's dark reaches. Most of the beasts would begin to scale the walls toward her, where as the chimps covered the ground. Raven took this terrifying sight in with understandable shock, and just as promptly tore off for the ladder.

`Damn, Raven!' She thought to herself while sprinting the roughly hundred yard distance, `You really stepped in it, this time!' Rather than continue to run the last few feet between the ladder and herself, the sorceress knelt down and sprung forward, catching directly in the center. She wasted no time collecting her bearings before hastily scaling for the second level. Never before had the Azarathian girl wanted to levitate than in that instance. This urge would only grow worse when one of the beasts, apparently physically superior to it's peers, caught up with her.

She would pause her climb only briefly to discharge a single round into it's ribs, then continue on her way.

The second level was a crude, circular area, lit by a sole work-light. Much like it's predacessor, it was stock-piled with crates and boxes, so much so that the tunnel that would lead either deeper, or out of the mines was almost covered. Raven was about to start for the gaping hole, when something caught the corner of her eye. Strewn across the top of a box was a sloppy arangement of dynamite. Not completely sure of how they would come in handy, but hoping for the best, her hand shot forward and wrapped around the center of a single stick. She immediately thereafter fled the scene.

It was either the corridor's unparalleled length, or the fact that it's conclusion broke off to both the left and right that made Raven feel as though, if there were greater forces at work, they were toying with her that night…and probably laughing their asses off.

She was nearly ten feet in before the sounds of her pursuers began to echo from behind her. Peering over her shoulder, she was slightly relieved to see that the count couldn't have been more than ten. The thought of using the M-16 once more did not seem appealing, but was more logical than aimlessly running through the tunnels with her hunters in such close proximity. Raven hastily pulled the strap from her shoulders and armed the rifle. With only a faint hope that the butt was in it's proper place, she yanked down on the trigger. Subsequently, the menacing screams and growls of her monstrous assailants weren't the only thing echoing throughout the mines.

With an almost animalistic ferocity, the rounds that were ejected from the M-16 met with their victims. In effect, ninety percent of the small hunting party was not brought down so much as it was ripped to pieces, narrowing the score to two machete beasts and one chimp.

Both decapitated monsters rushed directly for their prey, whilst their much smaller ally begun to pluck syringes from it's back. The first opponent to have reached the backpedaling Raven begun a series of exploratory swipes and jabs, all of which her reverse movement greatly assisted to avoid. Spying the second beast drawing ever closer, the sorceress forced the forty-four out from behind her charm. With her assailant not letting up even a foot, specific aim was hardly necessary, thus the trigger was pulled as soon as it became a possibility. A practical explosion exited from the barrel and met with the offending creature's shoulder, blowing it's entire arm along with nearly a third of the torso away. Losing almost gallons of blood by the second, it shrunk back and hit the ground.

Raven's intention of persisting the counter attack died as quickly as she caught sight of the arrival of more than twenty `reinforcements'. After sparring a moment to blast one more round into the second beast, she sighed heavily and dashed deeper still into the narrow cavern. Where her instincts told her to turn right, a consistent fretting that flourished in the back of her mind urged to at least look to the left. However, there was no time for looking, let alone drawn out indecision. Keeping that in mind, she turned right upon reaching the fork.

The first occasion of using her instincts was satisfyingly correct. The end of this particular tunnel was populated by one more crudely formed hole, through which dark, heavy clouds could be seen. With her adrenaline climbing, Raven's speed increased till she was only two or three feet short of the exit, to which she completely stopped. Reaching down, she extracted the stick of dynamite, which, like the magnum, was being held behind her charm.

Bringing the fuse to meet with the halogen light, she fixed her gaze back toward the army of beasts, which were steadily closing the distance between them and her.

"Go…" She muttered when it caught flame, "TO HELL!!!"

Arching her arm back as far as it could go, Raven flung the dynamite forward, then jumped through the hole.

-End chapter ten-