Fan Fiction ❯ Frailty ❯ I can sleep when I'm dead ( Chapter 12 )

"Frailty"

Chapter twelve- "I can sleep when I'm dead"

"….Ms. Raven? Wake up, sunshine. How am I supposed to perform a decent mental analysis when my subject is fast asleep?"

The `subject' as the familiar voice of Doctor Killjoy referred to, cringed and issued a soft "Mmm…" of recognition before quieting. Her head pounded furiously, as did the rest of her body, and it seemed impossible to open her eyes. All of this conspired to render her careless of the apparition's request to rise from the cot she had been strewn across, much less how she had arrived there.

The projected wraith hardly seemed amused, however his cheerful disposition did not banish.

"Very well." He stated solemnly. "Perhaps a little music is what you require to gain a fresh start…".

Raven remained silent.

Just as she was about to drift back to sleep, a symphony of piano and violin music begun to bray into her compact accommodations, causing her eyes to flip open in irritation. In under a minute, it would move from just that, to a near blood-boiling lividity that, in her condition, she did not to care to identify the source of.

"Do you know who this is?" Doctor Killjoy queried.

"I don't care!" Raven groaned, her voice beginning to crack. "I just wanna' go to sleep!"

Ignoring the telekinetic, he persisted to lecture, "His name is Jean Sibelius. He was a classical musician from Finland, especially famous in my time. His career as an orchestral composer and conductor really took of when he decided to focus all of his studies on counterpoint. Because of that, in 1892, he conducted `The Kullervo'; what you're hearing now. This was an extensive five- movement composition, which consisted of…"

Raven abruptly bolted upright and snapped her head in the direction of Doctor Killjoy, whom allowed himself to fall silent.

"FUCK JEAN SIBELIUS!" She screamed in a venomous voice that could strip paint.

"JEAN SIBELIUS IS GAY AND HIS MUSIC IS SHIT! I HATE HIM AND I HATE THIS ISLAND, IT SUCKS DICK!!!" She paused her outburst to flop against the cot and turn over, casting her back to the ghost before adding, "…and so does Jean Sibelius."

"…Interesting." Doctor Killjoy remarked as he looked upon the still form of his proclaimed patient. "A mild amount of applied annoyance causes a significant, inhuman boost in the subject's adrenaline levels, which throws the entire left side of the Cerebrum out of whack, including the frontal lobe, explaining why she loses consciousness with each occasion that this occurs…"

Raven did not respond when the projection closed the distance between himself and her. Shortly following her violent reaction, she had grown considerably light-headed, and her vision begun to fade.

Looming over her, he continued, "But just when did this begin? And what causes it to occur in situations of life and death?"

His last words would remain in the sorceress' mind as she slumbered, "I believe a tour through my asylum may answer these…complicated questions…"

-Harvey-

Gunfire rung across the brisk night air of Carnate island, causing Harvey to cringe whilst seeking refuge behind a nearby tree. A contortion of shotgun, magnum, assault rifle, and even grenade launcher blasts expelled at the same general time, laying waste to whatever they connected with.

When at long last, it subsided, Harvey Alding strode out from behind the tree and, after hollering, "Eat this, fuck-head!" begun firing anew, placing aim for the top of his target's skull.

The bullets sailed forward before sinking into the face of a gun-brute, violently listing it's entire head backward. It staggered in reverse, but quickly recovered, thus it's assailant shifted his aim toward the chest, but before he could squeeze the trigger, the creature did something particularly unexpected.

Kneeling down, it placed a palm against the earth and dashed forward, traveling at a break-neck speed.

Alding wasted no time to digest his opponent's new attack. Once the gap between the two was closed to little more than five feet, he ducked low and rolled to the side, giving the beast nothing more than air to tackle.

"What the fuck do you think you are, John Elleway?" He huffed while recovering to his feet.

In response, the hulking monstrosity clenched a fist and jabbed it forward.

Just as promptly as Harvey rose his only operational arm to block the attack, he jerked backward and swung it out, belting the beast directly across it's face.

As it railed in reverse, quickly capitalized. After launching a knee into it's abdomen, Alding pressed the barrel of his Uzi against the back of the hunched brute's head, and yanked down on the trigger. A flurry of led exploded from the gun and, though not succeeding in completely eradicating the victim's head, effectively collapsed the rear portion of it's skull.

Boring a smug expression across his face, the corrections officer loomed over his fallen opponent, finding recreation in it's struggle to stand.

"Consider yourself fraged, scum-bag." He sneered before issuing a harsh kick to it's clavicle,

disabling the sole shoulder that persisted it's fight to remain prominent.

Redirecting his attention to the path, Harvey checked the immediate area for any other threats.

He had hardly grown a twenty foot distance from the shaking encounter with the twin girls when his latest skirmish simply burst from the ground.

"Damn…" He mumbled while starting for the trail. "If I didn't have a religion, I'd think these things really were from Hell…"

Even though the air had been chilled for the winning portion of the night, occasionally shifting into light showers and strong gusts of wind, Alding had still managed to work up a sweat defending himself. A sweat that would be come all too apparent as his feet continued to toil amongst the path.

His feet.

The officer's eyes dropped to the soiled, black steel-toe `Harley Davidson' boots that had accompanied him this entire way. He smiled inwardly, remembering the short-lived struggle to keep them on his feet during the first few days of his career.

While Harvey may have been a harsh stick and enforcer of the rules, one thing he could simply not find himself agreement in was the thin-layered, poorly assembled and laced footwear that was actually issue to the corrections staff.

The day Corrections Officer Harvey Alding showed to work in a pair of rugged, multi-strapped motorcycle boots with a visible steel toe, he caused a visible amount of unrest among inmates and fellow C.O's alike.

He stopped in his tracks, allowing the memories to tether him. It seemed so difficult to believe that his lasting mark of the dispute with Abbot's prominent figures, not to mention two years worth of service, disappeared in the course of one night.

Harvey sighed, a small amount of his willpower ebbing away with the expelled breath.

"Where did my life go?" He asked himself.

Ironically enough, his question was greeted by a suggestive answer, "Maybe Carnate took it."

The officer spun on his heel and, swiftly extracting the flashlight from it's space on his belt, casted the luminescence where his earshot instructed.

He cringed mentally at catching site of the eerie twins, and nearly grimaced when a third stepped out from behind them.

Rather than respond, Harvey begun to fumble at his waist for a spare ammunition case.

With his silence reigning, one of the girls continued, "It's done that for hundreds of years. And no one can stop themselves from falling to it."

Alding smiled when his hand gripped around the box. The triplets had him panicked, but there was no chance he would let it openly show.

"Well, you know what they say…" He worked his lungs begun while popping the lid, "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it…"

The third girl to appear shook her head, "That isn't true, because now, history has cracked wide open." With that, all the three of them begun to skip down the path. Harvey nearly dropped his open case when the third phased right through his legs.

After shakily gathering his bearings, the officer turned around to see the girls continuing, leading him by a near fifteen foot distance.

"Hey!" He called after them before beginning pursuit. "I'm not done talking to you! What'd you mean by `History has cracked wide open'?!?"

The trail stretched a short distance before breaking to the right, the thickets that flanked it on both sides prevented a traveler from seeing just where it led to.

Whilst sprinting after his query, the corrections officer misjudged a rise in the path's center and, just as promptly as stumbling into it, tumbled forward. Fortunately, quick thinking on his part forced his good arm out, dampering the fall's impact. Unfortunately, the triplets had received such a considerable gain by this incident that, by the time he recovered to his feet, they had rounded the corner and were out of site.

Harvey did not immediately persist his chase. As he sparred a minute to dust off, a sudden afterthought entered his mind and cut his actions short. Though even upon this, it was not directly linked to the mysterious girls, something about the ordeal at hand seemed strikingly similar to an old story that was many-a-time relayed amongst the corrections officers at Abbot.

"Something about nineteenth century witch prosecutions…"

His eyes doubled in size as his mind came to terms with the hints.

"Those stakes in the fields!" He gasped. "Dear God, this can't be real!"

Without spending anymore time to collect or sort his thoughts, Harvey was in a mad dash for the trail's break. As smoothly as his legs would allow, the officer arched the turn and stopped short at seeing what he had been led into.

The path spilled into a large clearing- - a stretch of even land that measured a rough hundred square feet. Arising from the flat surface of dark grass were two key structures. One, a narrow, two-story building with a small balcony on the second floor, neighbored the other, a concrete foundation, on top of which there lay a generator and two large fuel tanks. Navigating each edge was a stout fence that stood at a rough nine foot height.

None of this gained Alding's attention so much as the stake that lay between the two constructs.

At three central locations, the triplets stood around the crudely fashioned timber. As Harvey moved in, the soft words that they spoke became audible, "We never thought they would have actually believed us at first, but they did!" One said, her gaze not averting from the stake. No time came to pass before the girl next to her continued, "…And they made all the people we didn't like go away. It was so much fun, but then…but then…" Where she failed, the third continued, "…But then we got carried away…it went from people we didn't like, to people that made us angry…then to people we just thought we were ugly…"

Harvey was planted to the ground, everything behind the childish spectrums figured out.

"So, the story was true…" He said in a drained tone. All three of the triplets looked toward him at nearly the same time.

"The story of when Carnate was first colonized, and the three little girls that held witch persecutions…"

"We didn't mean to! We didn't think they would believe us so easily!" One protested.

Ignoring her completely, he continued, running on auto-pilot, "Because they were triplets, the villagers were actually superstitious enough to believe that they were prophets…"

"We had no way of knowing that!" Another argued, however her voice was frail compared to her words, and tears begun to wail in her eyes.

"Because of their accusations of witchcraft, more than fifteen people were tied to a stake and burnt alive."

"We…we…" That was as far the third would reach into her defense. In unison, all three of the girls fell to their knees and released a series of window-shattering screams.

Harvey railed in reverse when, one by one, the triplet ghosts burst into flames. Taking place within the torrent's confines was a small, charred skeleton. A mangled, stiff main of hair remained in tact at the rear of the skull, and in the sockets were a pair of eyes that burnt more furiously than the fire that consumed them.

"Damn, damn, damn!" Alding fell back and defensively rose his Uzi when one of the flaming undead took flight and soared for him, leaving a trail of flames behind her.

"Alright, hot-shot!" He huffed after springing into a moderate safe-haven, "Let's see how you take to led!"

Though it was difficult to gaze past the swirling flames, with a determined squint of his eyes, Harvey gained a successful view of the head. Swiftly raising his Uzi to eye-level, he jerked on the trigger, subsequently causing a hot stream of bullets to disgorge from the barrel.

The demonic spirit convulsed as the multitude of shells made contact at various points, but did not fall. Though the gunfire could have continued till the target was gone, her sisters had begun to close the distance between her assailant and themselves.

Harvey Alding's head turned in their direction in just enough time to see the twin spirits sailing toward him in a rough X formation.

"Crap!" He hissed before sprinting for the thicket.

His pursuers hot on his heels in more ways than one, the corrections officer was more-or-less forced to perform something crafty- - fortunately, such a maneuver came into view as he neared the first tree of the underbrush.

`Damn, if I can still pull this off, it'll show prove that all that time spent in an acrobatics class really did come in handy!' he thought before running straight up the tree, then flipping off of it.

Just as planned, two of the three undead sisters smashed into it's side, immediately setting the Redwood aflame. However, Harvey's landing was far from a ten. Upon colliding feet-first against the ground, he lost his balance and tumbled to, thankfully enough, the side of his unbroken arm.

Where the two burning girls struggled to make a full recovery, Alding only had to retrieve his firearm, and avoid their sister, whom was extending one of her small, flaming arms for him.

His hand groped blindly for the Uzi, and, just as the hand was inches away from his face, the heat of it's fire radiating in spades, Harvey's finger brushed along the cold steel of his prize.

"Bingo!" He exclaimed in victory before swiping it up and squeezing the trigger.

The girl listed in reverse as her midsection was met by a blast of led, and after sustaining the fifth shot screeched piercingly. Toward the end, her voice begun to distort and slow, as if it were being played on a recorder and the pause button was held down, but not completely depressed.

Her fire dissipated as promptly as it had appeared and the skeleton that it once engulfed begun to crumble into a pile of ashes from the feet up.

Harvey huffed while clambering to his knees. As he gazed at his two remaining targets, it was all too easy to conclude that the battle was far from over. However, whilst springing away from their glowing forms, the corrections officer found it easier to operate with the knowledge that they could be killed at all.

"Bring it, ya' damn Hell-spawn!" He challenged as the nearest wraith begun to take flight. The ball of flames lifted from the ground and seemingly jettisoned for him, assailing with her hands upon drawing closer. Responsively, Alding jerked to the side and let her pass then, seizing the opportunity, turned and blasted into her back.

Just as quickly as ten rounds were fired in rapid succession, the corrections officer interrupted himself to, again, tear off for the thicket. Based on the subtle amount of observations he took, this new nemesis' primary form of attack was rushing in directly, hoping to set it's prey ablaze.

In this case, it was more than logical to assume that a stick of some sort, used to bat it away, would be the most effective counter.

Harvey did not appear to be receiving much luck as he scanned the immediate area for a fallen branch, roughly five feet away from the outlining trees.

"Terrific." He grumbled while closing the gap, "Gotta' rip one from the tree."

Though upon reaching the destination, he commenced to do just this (neglecting to check the distance of his pursuers) something that lay on the ground nearby, half veiled by the underbrush, gained his focus. Aborting his grip from the limb that Harvey was prepared to tug away, he knelt down and wrapped a hand around the cylindrical object. What was a curiously bewildered expression quickly melted away. Taking it's place was a near ear-to-ear beam as he extracted a led pipe, close to seven feet long.

"Wonder where this coulda' come from!" He remarked while whirling around.

Harvey could not have hunched into a batter stance and assumed the defensive a moment too soon. Just as his new weapon came to rest across his shoulder, the nearest wraith was a mere fifteen foot distance away.

"C'mon, ya' cannibal-barbecue gone wrong!" He taunted as the torrent drew the gap tighter,

"Come and get me!"

The fire's radiance grew to a near unbearable heat, and was the perfect sign for Alding to take action. Bracing his arm, he swung the led pipe out in a wide arch, sending it's side to collide directly into the target's chin. The entire jaw dislocated and the girl herself was air-born for more than a half a minute before coming to collide with the ground.

Rather than muse over the prospect of his opposition's upset, Harvey spun on his heel and swung once more. A dull crack took the air as the led pipe smacked into the ribs of the other undead creature. Victim to her own utter surprise, she careened to the side before following her sister's suit to the ground.

Persisting his onslaught with an almost insane passion, the corrections officer lifted the hollow tube above his head and brought it down upon the skull of his victim. At noting that this gambit failed to banish her, he repeated it twice more, the ferocity building with each strike.

At long last, when the third downward cleave connected with the top of her head, the entire skull split open. As the flames extinguished, the wraith's maw opened as if to scream, however nothing emerged.

Knowing there was no time to watch her last moments proceed, Alding revolved around to face his final threat. Relieved of it's jaw and under some strange circumstance, incapable of flying, she trudged toward him, the flames that engulfed her skeletal form almost symbolizing the insatiable malice that consumed her. Harvey watched tensely as she grew closer, his urge to swing dominating his arm. Finally, when the spectrum-girl's arms reached out, whatever barrier held the officer back broke. Alding hefted the pipe over his head once more and brought it down, pushing as much strength into the swing as his aching arm would allow.

The blow connected with an audible thud, sending it's victim stumbling in reverse before falling to her butt. Rather than proceed to snuff her life away by means of violent bludgeoning, her assailant discarded his melee weapon and lifted the Uzi.

"Kiss it goodbye, freak." He mumbled, more to himself than her, before pulling the trigger, subsequently smiting her head. By the end of his altercation, the corrections officer would have a headache, his sweat that was once miniscule had nearly tripled, and his shoulder ached from the pipe. Regardless, he stood, and he continued to be strong.

Long after the last girl was reduced to a pile of ashes, Harvey Alding remained at the clearing attempting to negotiate through the fence that barred him from the light house generator. He found it rather hard to keep focused, however. With each small task that required he look away from his work, his sight would immediately shift to the three keep-sakes of his battle.

At long last, their haunting presence took control. After traipsing over to one of the accumulations of cinder, he mused audibly, "I never thought that that damn story would've been true…" He exhaled sharply before continuing, "They were right about one thing, though. The history of Carnate is cracking open…and everything it held is falling out."

-End Chapter twelve-

Closing note

Absolutely no offense was intended to Jean Sibelius in this fanfiction.

The mild answer to `how' Raven wound up where she was will come in the next chapter.

A special thanks to Deadric Athena, as I just realized my neglect in showing my gratitude for her gracious compliments. I'm appreciative of anyone that takes the time to provide feedback and tell me what they think, but it is those who stick with me through thick and thin that I am especially fond of.

…and if it hasn't become obvious, yes, Harvey Alding's time in the military made him a very formidable force.