Static Shock Fan Fiction ❯ Time And Time Again ❯ End of Small Sanctuary ( Chapter 3 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: Manga-Chick 
How far could one's darkness go?
Non Anime: Static Shock Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai / Horror / Angst | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 11.27.2006 | Pages: 5 | Words: 8.8K | Visits: 261 | Status: Completed
How far could one's darkness go?
Non Anime: Static Shock Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Hentai / Horror / Angst | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 11.27.2006 | Pages: 5 | Words: 8.8K | Visits: 261 | Status: Completed
AU, OOC, violence...supernatural themes, violence...slash, gore
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN STATIC AND OTHER ASSOCIATED CHARACTERS!
This is based off Silent Hill, of which I do not own but worship. ^_^ Chapter titles are borrowed from the titles of SH2 and SH3 soundtracks...both of which I RECOMMEND if you’re into that sort of music, and both of which I do not OWN in any way.
Chapter Three:
End Of Small Sanctuary
Richie was cursing Virgil under his breath as he stiffly made his way through the back alleys, Backpack clinging determinedly to his front. The data that streamed constantly in the lenses of his goggle told him that Backpack had taken on some damage from Virgil’s electrocuting. It needed immediate repairs and was losing data due to memory damage. Richie was pissed that Virgil deliberately caused harm to his precious robot, and he hoped that it hurt Virgil when he’d shorted out. Virgil’s shock onto him had left him with stiff muscles and his wrists slightly raw.
His destination in mind, Richie figured he could hide his stolen food in various hiding areas throughout the city to ensure food for the next day. But Backpack needed instant repair, and his destination had tools awaiting him. He wouldn’t return to the Marriot. He gave Backpack the command to watch out for both man and creature, trying to shake out the stiffness in his limbs. Backpack was able to run a check through all the street cameras in the area, emitting a clearance.
But Richie detected problems in Backpack’s report, frowning at the broken streams of data. By the time he found the place–a veterinary clinic–he was once again cursing his friend. He shook his arms once more, Backpack’s weight uncomfortably heavy and bulky against his chest. He walked in through the back, Backpack leaping away from him to take point. Richie closed and locked the door behind him, quickly taping Zappers to the walls in case anybody managed to sneak in after him. They emitted an intense charge meant to stun a two hundred pound man. They’d come in handy plenty of times.
An hour later, Richie had taken half of Backpack apart, frowning at the mess Virgil had caused. He’d fried more than a few circuit boards and scrambled some memory chips, as well as damaged a few of Backpack’s arms. He had the parts to replace it all in the clinic–all his ‘homes’ had parts and tools that he would need for his inventions. Backpack was working on its third back-up generator in an effort to keep its security system running, quietly emitting secure commands from time to time. It wasn’t able to perform any other action, and Richie was nervous about it. His own connection to the robot was fuzzy, emitting static between them from time to time. Backpack was practically operating on its own fashion.
Richie had just finished replacing its last arm, aiming to reconnect all its parts when he realized he wasn’t alone. He looked up in alarm, watching a tall brunette drop several of his Zappers on the other end of the table. The man was well over six feet–muscled and grim in military-style clothing. Richie spied the full bandoleer, the slung rifle, the three handguns strapped to various areas of his body. The large Bowie knife strapped to his belt. He looked back at the man’s face, noting the steely facial expression. Even as the man moved to settle himself at the end of the table, Richie could not hear him move.
He looked in consternation at the disabled Zappers, mentally going over Backpack’s current working functions and their limits. He’d stabilized many of Backpacks’ malfunctioning components and repaired the missing data charges–the robot was able to do more than it had an hour ago. But then again, he had been looking for a time to test Backpack’s backup in terms of working capabilities and limits.
He heard noise from behind him. He jerked in the stool to see another man standing in the doorway, dropping more Zappers onto the counter next to him. This one wasn’t covered in weaponry as the other was–just dressed casually, as if he were out for some sort of stroll.
Richie frowned again, slowly lowering his soldering tool as the brunette smirked at him. He felt himself tense, vaguely bringing to mind moments in time where school bullies had snuck up around him to harass him when no one of authority was looking.
“Hey, kid. Finally caught up to you.” Harley looked over Backpack’s exposed parts, a little bewildered as to what he was seeing. He fiddled with attached wires that he couldn’t identify. He then cried out in shock as Richie smashed his fingers with his soldering tool. At the moment Harley pulled away, Backpack’s arms shot out to attach onto the former Marine’s biceps. A charge made the man stiffen in place, Richie sweeping all his tools and equipment into his messenger bag.
Once Backpack released Harley, the big man flopping to the floor with ungainly snarls as he convulsed, Hotstreak hesitated. That gave Richie enough time to withdraw a grenade-sized device from his bag and scoop Backpack up into the other arm. He hurled the Zap Trap at Hotstreak as Backpack sluggishly responded to his command to hold onto him. The Zap Trap exploded against Hotstreak, ensnaring him immediately as Harley shouted incoherently from the floor. The former Marine was struggling to rise as Richie jumped over him and ran for the door.
At that moment, Richie heard a particular sound–a massive roar, following heat that caused the room to fill with uncomfortable warmth. He slammed to a stop, shock registered on his face as he watched Hotstreak melt the ensnaring wire into nothingness. When he was free, he brushed off his clothes carefully, then looked up when Harley shouted at him furiously from the floor. Richie was startled into moving, running out the door. He glanced once more over his shoulder to seeing Hotstreak start after him, Harley rising to his feet.
Richie slammed the door shut behind him, holding onto Backpack with one arm and fumbling with his bag with the other. The door slammed open as he started running. He clumsily withdrew a Zap Cap from his bag, twisting slightly to hurl the device at the running man behind him. It exploded with a loud bang!, making the redhead cry out with surprise as he stopped short to avoid impact. Richie glanced over his shoulder to see that the flare had blinded the man, giving him time to flee down the street. Huffing and puffing, he took to another alleyway, eyeing the fire escape nearby.
Backpack alerted him to trouble at that moment, Richie gasping as several fireballs exploded around him. He fumbled with his messenger bag, withdrawing two Caps covered with blue tape. Whirling around, he saw Hotstreak stumbling after him, rubbing at his eyes and armed with a fireball in hand. Richie nervously eyed the phenomenon, trying to ignore the urge to ask questions, waiting for the right moment to throw. When Hotstreak saw that he was armed, he slammed to a stop, unsure of what Richie was holding. Both of them fought for breath, each one eyeing the other cautiously–waiting for the other to move.
Hotstreak then feinted right, hurling the fireball in hand at Richie’s feet; then twisting to throw another directly at him. Richie ducked, hurling the Cap and missing him as Hotstreak dodged left, charging at him. The Cap exploded with water, making him falter in his steps. Richie quickly hurled the other, dropping Backpack in the process.
Hotstreak cried out with anger as the water Cap hit him in the chest, exploding with a painful impact. Richie picked Backpack up, moving to run once more when Harley tackled him from behind. Both hit the pavement in a tangle of limbs and curses, Richie immediately swinging and kicking. Backpack’s arms shot out, grabbing a hold of Harley. Harley immediately twisted free, Backpack’s arms lighting up with a charge meant for the big man. Richie quickly grabbed another Trap, Hotstreak shouting with warning as he flung it at Harley. Wires missed by scant inches as Backpack’s rebar arms shot out to ensnare his legs. Richie grabbed Backpack at that moment, watching with dismay as Backpack began to lose power. Its arms lost its rigidity and strength, falling away from Harley as Hotstreak tackled Richie to the pavement once more.
With a shouting curse, Harley was on his feet, lunging over to snatch Backpack away from Richie as the teen struggled to get away from Hotstreak. Harley tossed Backpack away, reaching in to grab Richie’s left arm as he swung repeatedly at Hotstreak’s head. Both men struggled to hold onto him as he cursed and fought savagely, kicking at both of them. One boot landed into Harley’s groin, infuriating the former Marine. He began punching the teen, Hotstreak pulling away as Harley sought to restrain the teen for a more direct hit. Once he realized Harley was losing control of himself, he shoved at him, shouting.
But Richie wouldn’t give up–taking the punches in a dazed manner, his fingers curled into Harley’s face and yanked, looking for any sort of purchase against the bigger man. Harley pulled away with an enraged roar, blinking rapidly as stinging sensation caused his skin to burn painfully with the scratches. Hotstreak moved in to wrap his arms around Richie’s neck and left arm, pulling him into a fierce chokehold. Harley moved in to punch at him, Backpack scuttling forward in desperation. It wrapped its main arms around Harley’s legs and pulled hard. Harley fell to the ground with a loud curse, Hotstreak swinging Richie away, pushing him into the pavement in an effort to pull his arms back behind him. Harley turned, reaching for his .45 semiautomatic, firing repeatedly at Backpack.
Bullets bounced off or embedded within the steel hull, Richie crying out in alarm upon hearing gunshots. His struggle renewed, head snapping back to catch Hotstreak in the chin. Harley, once seeing his partner falter with impact, dove onto Richie, roughly shoving his knee into his back and shoving both bent arms high upon his back, making him scream with pain. Backpack’s rebar arms shot out, Hotstreak whirling around to hurl fireballs at the robot as Harley used all his weight to subdue the teen. Backpack was forced to retreat, finding cover behind a Dumpster as its sensors detected the heat.
Harley kept an eye on Backpack while pulling plastic cuffs from his pants pocket, managing to catch hold of Richie’s hands, tightening them painfully around his wrists. When Backpack pulled out the laser gun, every movement growing slow, Hotstreak covered his partner by spreading a ring of fire around them. From that ring, he drew several large balls of fire, hurling them at the Dumpster. The metallic object violently shifted position with every impact, scorch marks marring the walls and pavement, tires leaving black marks with every rough action.
Harley pulled Richie from the pavement, using him as a human shield. “Call it off!” he snarled as Backpack struggled to hold itself steady.
Richie stubbornly wrenched away from him, frantic to get to his invention before anymore harm came to it. Harley followed the movement, sweeping out a leg and tripping him, slamming him into the pavement, knee over neck as he grew intensely frustration with the lack of cooperation. When Richie continued to struggle, manic in his efforts to get to Backpack, Harley withdrew his weapon once more to hit him repeatedly with the butt, shouting at him to call the robot off.
Hotstreak saw the actions, flame dying out immediately. Backpack had stopped its attack, slumped due to loss of power. Hotstreak pulled Harley back, making him fall with a curse.
“Alive, dummy!” he snapped, glancing at Backpack before pulling Richie up, the teen sluggishly sitting on his knees, winded from the actions of earlier.
Harley was once more on his feet, stomping over to Backpack. Richie saw this, struggling to surge to his feet as all thoughts of protecting his invention overcame common sense. “Leave it alone!” he shouted, oblivious to the way his voice cracked. “Leave it alone! Don’t touch it!”
He shouted in anger as Harley picked Backpack up and hurled it down the alley, metal crunching loudly upon pavement. Hotstreak held onto Richie’s arm when the teen tried to go after it, frowning at Harley’s actions as the former Marine withdrew his MP5 from around his back, slamming a cartridge into place. He set himself steady as he fired repeatedly at the robot, which was weakly scurrying for cover into a nearby sewer gate. A couple of the bars were broken, allowing it to scuttle between them for cover.
Richie cried out in alarm, fearing Harley destroying Backpack. The robot kept losing contact with him, blinking in and out of power–he inwardly hoped that it wasn’t too badly damaged, already thinking of the repairs it would need when they escaped.
Harley grew tired of wasting ammo. He slung his weapon back over his shoulder, spitting blood from his mouth. He eyed the teen angrily, eyes full of venom and jaw tightly clenched. He walked back to them, ignoring Hotstreak’s disapproving expression. When he drew close enough, he jerked Richie away from him, shoving him to the pavement. He stepped in close, kicking the teen in the face–then punching his torso fiercely when he tried to curl up into a ball to protect himself. Hotstreak shoved Harley off, pushing him against the wall in an effort to jolt his senses.
“Knock it off!” he shouted, shoving him again. “What the hell’s wrong with you?!”
Harley shoved him away, aiming for more abuse when he cast Backpack a cautious look. The robot was half hidden in between the broken bars of the sewer gate. Seeing that both teen and machine were down, he started to calm.
“Fuck!” Hotstreak snapped, shooting him a furious look as he set himself between the teen and his lunatic lover. “Alive, idiot! What the fuck?! Calm the fuck down!”
Harley glared at him, checking his ammo pockets with agitated gestures. He then turned his glare at Richie, the teen glaring at him. He was bloodied and dirtied, but compliant, seeing that his invention was safe for the moment. Harley shoved Hotstreak away from him, withdrawing his hunting knife and lunging at Richie. The teen cried out with fear upon seeing the knife, falling onto his back to kick out. One boot caught Harley’s knee, the man stumbling before falling onto him. Hotstreak moved in to restrain him when Harley jerked the strap of Richie’s messenger bag up, slashing through that and ripping the bag from him. He cut away the vest upon finding pockets full of various items, deeming them a danger. All the while, Richie protested fiercely, struggling to get into a position where he could kick at him.
Upon realizing movement, he turned his head as Harley and Hotstreak caught sight of his robot moving forward, aiming to help.
“BACK!” he shouted as Hotstreak fired up a few more fireballs. “BACK! COVER!”
Backpack seemed to hesitate for a few moments, arms wavering with continued loss of power. It seemed reluctant as it scuttled back into the sewer, Hotstreak relaxing slightly. Satisfied that the robot was going to stay out of it, he looked back in time to see Harley spit into Richie’s face, jerking him to his feet.
“Son of a bitch!” he cursed heatedly, kicking him, then angrily jerking him back to his feet when he stumbled. “Fucking son of a bitch! Ruin my pretty face, you fucking bastard!”
Hotstreak shoved him once more with a bark of laughter. Harley hit the wall upon losing his grip on the teen, cursing upon impact. The three of them were panting for breath, the alley quiet for a few moments. Richie eyed them both with fierce anger, exhausted from the fight. Harley managed to catch his breath, glaring at him. He then looked at Hotstreak in annoyance.
“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” Hotstreak demanded, resting his hands on his hips. “What’s that all about?”
“He. Hurt. Me,” Harley ground out, pointing out his various injuries.
Hotstreak studied them, then nodded in solemn agreement. “Yeah. You got your ass whupped by a kid with his hands tied behind his back. Sucks to be you.”
Harley stared at him for a few dangerous moments, hand then dropping to the hilt of his gun. Hotstreak eyed that movement, then looked at him with a lifted eyebrow. The tension was thick, Richie holding his breath as he waited for one of them to move.
Hotstreak looked away, moving toward him. Richie uttered a protest as he was once more jerked to his feet. Harley moved away from the wall, snatching his goggle from his head. He then paused, startled at the unexpected weight of the object as Hotstreak watched. Harley looked at the lense, examining the object with bewilderment.
“Don’t,” Richie snapped at him. He endured Harley’s angered stare with one of his own. “Don’t break those. Those are important. I worked on those for a long time, and I don’t appreciate it being handled the way you’re doing. Just–put them back.”
Harley’s expression was clearly affronted. He tossed them into the air a couple of times, never taking his dark eyes from Richie’s, jaw tight. Then he relaxed. “Oh yeah? You worked on them a long time?”
He threw them onto the pavement, Richie crying out with dismay. He lunged at the man as Harley stomped on them with the heel of his boot. Richie’s teeth bore into his skin, the man screaming aloud, whirling to punch him. The blond fell awkwardly, fist missing him by scant inches as Harley lost his balance with the forceful throw. Hotstreak pushed between them to stop the abuse, shoving Harley away.
“Let’s go. We got ‘im, let’s get your stupid bounty,” he growled with impatience, dragging Richie alongside him. He had to use both arms when Richie lunged for Backpack, Harley examining some of his injuries with renewed anger.
Backpack stayed within the sewer gate as Harley passed by, muttering under his breath as Richie continued to protest their leave of his invention.
* - * - * - * - *
Virgil stared at the continuous blinking red light on his phone. He lowered it to look at the alley, confused. His flashlight illuminated the ruined mess. The silence and stillness of night was its usual abrupt discomfort. Fog was penetrating everything around him, moving through abandoned buildings like a silent snake. The temperature continued to drop, making his teeth chatter slightly.
He cast a nervous glance at the dark shadows of the alley, stepping forward. He hissed Richie’s name as he carefully stepped around lumps of ashes. He could smell acrid smoke and melted metal. He hadn’t any idea what had happened in the area, and had no idea why the signal on his phone told him that Richie was here.
He stumbled suddenly, nearly dropping his phone as his foot caught onto something that scuffed loudly against the pavement. The sound rang out against the alley walls, making him wince. The glow of his flashlight told him he’d stumbled over Richie’s messenger bag. Horror dashed through his veins, rendering his blood cold. For a few moments, he was blind with it.
Legs shaking, mind frantic over the thought that his friend was dead, he found that the strap had been slashed. The bag was intact–a few feet over, he saw the brown vest Richie had been wearing. It looked slashed as well. His mind numbly went over the scenario–that his friend walked into some sort of demon trap, becoming the next unfortunate victim of some creature that then carried his body off to feast–
He realized that the shiny lump nearby was Backpack. His friend had never been without Backpack for as long as the invention had been created. Horror made his brain buzz. He couldn’t lift his legs to move as he saw the inanimate object, feeling extreme feelings of guilt and intense sadness filter through all his thoughts and emotions; then he realized that Backpack’s hull was damaged with bullet holes. He recognized bullet holes.
He was painfully reminded of his mother’s drive-by death.
It was as if he’d lost connection with time and space at that moment; recalling his mother’s funeral. The newspaper articles; the printed comments of bystanders. Intense feeling made Virgil’s insides clench with a violence that overrode all his hard-earned survival instincts; he focused out the murderous world of Madelyn’s Purgatory, lost in all the memories of his mother’s death.
Fog intensified. Cold grew stronger. Ice crystals began to form on everything around him, silence roaring with the sort of buzzing that made it impossible to discern true quiet.
Then a mechanical screaming ripped him from his past, resetting his internal programming with violent reaction. He whirled, ready to fend off the creature that had interrupted his flashbacks when he realized the screaming was echoing through the streets from a distance. He was safe; but reminded of what dangers lurked when one wasn’t paying attention.
Sluggishly, Virgil moved over to Backpack, noting the damage done to its hull. He shakily crouched next to the invention, examining the unretracted limbs and the melted areas. He cast the flashlight around himself once more, looking for telltale blood. Morbidly wanting to see the normal clues of a shooting; evidence of his friend’s death. He saw many shells–some that varied from others–and bulletholes throughout the walls and pavement. But no blood or gore.
He was shaking heavily as he searched, stomach clenching and unclenching; he realized that the alleyway was covered with scorch marks that were pockish in design. They streaked against the walls, melting the Dumpster; they decorated the pavement and left trash in scattering ashes. He caught the glint of metal and realized he was looking at Richie’s glasses. Another foot and he saw the trashed matter of his snowboarding goggle.
And he realized, just upon looking at all the haphazard items, that his friend wasn’t dead at all. Virgil grit his teeth, thinking of the men that had chased them from the fire station. He picked up the broken pair of glasses, examining them; as if they’d tell him where Richie was. Frustrated in that his tracking device hadn’t led him directly to his friend, Virgil forgot about Maria and the key she’d left him.
He grabbed the messenger bag, stuffing the ruined vest inside. He picked up the ruined robot, and climbed the Dumpster. With as much care possible, he hid Backpack and the bag within the destroyed contents of the container, then leapt away. He scanned the alley, trying to guess what had happened. He realized that there were footprints from ash all over the place–a few led toward the back of the alley.
Virgil smiled grimly, mind racing as he followed the footprints in ash.
* - * - * - * - *
Harley hissed as he applied hydrogen peroxide to the teeth marks on his chest, bare torso heaving as he endured the stinging pain. He capped the bottle, sopping up the excess with a cotton ball. He then used that to wipe at the scratches on his face, hissing at that as well. He scowled over at the teen, who was glowering at him from the chair he was sitting on. One wrist was handcuffed to the chair’s back. Both were still tightly bound with the plastic tie.
Harley lowered the cotton to the table, growing irritated with the quiet stare. Finally, he returned his attention to the bite, smearing Vaseline over it before applying gauze and tape.
The table had the photo of the bounty, Richie spotting it when the bottle of hydrogen peroxide was moved.
Hotstreak was sitting in a chair nearby, fingers clenching his hair as he stared at the dirty floor, listening to Harley’s every movement. The room was quiet save for the fireplace that cackled upon occasion.
The house was small, located in a once middle class section of Dakota’s west end. It proudly boasted of a den, living room, kitchen and dining room on one floor, and a staircase that led up to a couple of rooms above. Everything had been redesigned into a fortress against the elements outside. The windows were boarded over. The door was a trick. There were many escape hatches throughout every room, as well as weaponry taking over available space. Candles sat everywhere.
Food wrappers and containers were piled in the kitchen. Bags of refuse were stacked neatly near the fireplace. The fireplace was absurdly large, but it made sense when one of the occupants welded fire.
“I’ll contact them,” Harley said, his voice breaking the tense stillness of the room. “They’re never in the same place. Maybe I can get more added to the bounty.”
“Blackmail? Is that smart?” Hotstreak asked, not really paying attention to what he was saying.
“Of course it is. I want that bounty. But I think, with all the trouble we went through, we should be given more,” Harley said, pulling on an undershirt before pulling his gray USMC shirt over that. “Maybe hunting grounds in the Hills.”
“...You’re the one that wants the arsenal. I could give a fuck.”
“Their little underground operation really isn’t very much,” Harley continued, shooting him an irritated look. “Just a bunch of faggots dressed in hardcore military clothing. There’s no organization. They’re probably just pedophiles. Let them have the kid. I just want that bounty.”
“They got connections outside of Dakota, too. I doubt it’s very small.”
“How do you know that, huh? You know shit that I don’t?”
“I was listening to them. They got people all over the place. Not necessarily named the underground, either. Whatever they are, they ain’t no two-bit group.”
“Where’d you hear that at?”
“Them guys at the fire station were talking about some meeting or another with some guys from Nebraska. They mentioned Alva a few times. The old fuck must have some connections or somethin’ to have a bunch of guys working for him.”
“...Alva, huh? Thought the bastard died in the invasion.” Harley began gathering all his medical supplies into a worn box, shooting Richie a glare. The teen had dried blood on his face from a bloodied nose, blond hair askew from sweat drying at his hairline. The imprint of where his goggle had rested had left certain areas of his hair flat; there was a tanline on his forehead. He’d lost his glasses in the fight in the alley.
“Whatever Alva gots planned, it’s all on him,” Hotstreak muttered, brushing his fingers through his hair. He straightened in his chair, glaring at the picture atop of the table. “We’re going tonight?”
“I’ll go, first. Stay here with him. I don’t want you fucking up my negotiating with your dumb mouth.”
Hotstreak shot him a glare as Harley rose from his seat. The former Marine redressed in his bulletproof vest and bandoleer, pulling over various other weaponry as well. There was a Polaroid camera nearby. He used it to take a picture of the dirtied teen, who winced upon the bright light that briefly illuminated the room. Set, he pulled his flashlight out from his belt.
“I might be awhile. They didn’t leave us with a contact man or destination. I’m going to head up to the military compound, then check the lab area. You’re in charge. Don’t fuck it up.”
“It’s not there.”
Both men looked up sharply as Richie spoke, gesturing at his chin at the picture on the table. Harley froze, his forehead furrowing.
“I was just there, two days ago. They loaded up all that stuff and sent them to Valentine. That’s in Nebraska, if you don’t know your geography.”
Both men exchanged a look, Harley snatching the photo from the table to look at it, as if he could see that happening. Hotstreak gave Harley a pointed look. “See? Told you. They were shady, anyway.”
“He’s fuckin’ lying,” Harley said in disgust, tossing the photo down. “He’s just saying shit.”
“I wouldn’t lie,” Richie ground out, glaring at him. “I watched them do it. They’re lying to you.”
Harley started to snap at him when he frowned, pining him with a look. “You know who these people are?”
“No. But I doubt it’s an army against Madelyn.”
“Madelyn’s a myth. A rumor.”
“Then you’re just as stupid as your face looks.”
Harley’s jaw tightened, eyes growing wide with rising fury. Hotstreak sighed as he wiped his own face, the day’s events catching up to him. Stubbornly, Richie held the expression the former Marine had on his face. Harley started to move when Hotstreak rose with a heavy sigh.
“Go check it out on the sly,” he said with an accompanying yawn. “Maybe he’s lying, maybe he ain’t. Find out for yourself.”
Harley started to relax, but the comment on his face was still burning fury in him. He touched the swollen scratches on his left cheek, sweeping his fingertips over his dark eyebrows. With another glare, he left the kitchen. A door slammed moments later.
The kitchen was quiet save for the fire crackling nearby. Richie shifted uncomfortably in the seat he was handcuffed to. Hotstreak was lost in his own thoughts, running a hand against the stubble on his face as he stared up at the cobwebbed ceiling.
The blond grimaced, feeling the various injuries he’d gained through the scuffle earlier. Two of his teeth felt loose, and he tongued them gently, hoping they’d stay where they were. Blood had caked along his nose, cheek and chin; it was an uncomfortable feeling. He kept thinking of Backpack’s safety, wondering if the robot had managed to find some cover.
He looked over at the other man, tugging at the handcuffs that kept him in place. He wanted to complain about the lack of feeling in his hands, but he felt that he shouldn’t. In this position, he was reminded of the day he’d landed himself in juvenile detention. He’d spent three hours sitting in a chair after his last electronic scam, waiting for those in charge to decide what to do with him.
His eyes darted over the various objects on the tabletop, wondering what he could use to get loose. Harley was creepy; he definitely didn’t want to stick around the man for very long. He looked at Hotstreak, judging his character based on what he’d seen. There was something funny about the both of them, something he just couldn’t touch.
He searched for something to say, something polite in order to have the plastic tie taken off his wrists. He thought of Virgil, feeling a little angry that the other boy wouldn’t know what was happening to him because of their fight. He wondered when Virgil would realize that Richie was in trouble. He wondered if Virgil would even care. He was probably too hurt over their fight to even bother with thinking of him nicely.
“My hands hurt,” he said curtly, glaring at the redhead. The man jerked, as if startled out of his thoughts, reminded that he was there. “Can you loosen these ties?”
He kept his glower as Hotstreak studied him with a sort of bored expression. Richie tried to guess how old he was, squinting at him as he took in the dark red hair, dark brows and square chin. When he said nothing, Richie frowned. It hurt to wiggle his fingers.
Wood popped in the fireplace, and he sulked as he sat back in the chair. It was an uncomfortable situation, and he didn’t know what to do with himself. He didn’t want to sit here in silence; nor tied to a damn chair. Not when the house could be broken into by creatures. He was a sitting duck!
“I have to go to the bathroom,” he tried. He thought of the other juveniles, the ones he’d seen that had been handcuffed before their court hearings. They had been tough and mocking; he tried to adapt that same attitude to keep from showing his fear.
“Too bad,” Hotstreak muttered, leaning on the table. He began picking at his nails.
Richie glowered at him. Seeing that he was going no where, he sighed low. The silence was maddening. His fingers itched to have something in them to occupy himself and his thoughts. Frustration over Backpack left him impatient, angry. He kicked at a table leg, startling the redhead into glaring at him.
Awkwardly, Richie looked away. He glowered at the living room.
The silence was getting to him. He opened his mouth and began to recite every Dr. Seuss book he remembered. Starting with “The Cat in the Hat”. By the time he was going over “Hop on Pop”, Hotstreak couldn’t tune him out any longer.
He pushed back from the table, startling Richie out of his recitation. The blond watched as Hotstreak eyed him for several moments, then rose from his chair. Fear tightened his throat as he wondered what the man was going to do to him.
“You’re lucky I’m not him,” Hotstreak muttered, picking up the key to the handcuffs and releasing Richie from the chair. “C’mon. I’m going to show you something.”
“Are you going to let me go?”
“Nope. I’m just gonna show you a warning.” Hotstreak held firmly onto one arm, Richie following along with a sort of trepidation as he was pulled toward a doorway nearby. Curiosity made him eager to see what Hotstreak was going to show him; why the man made it sound so damn ominous.
* - * - * - * - *
The stairs were narrow and dark. The dark and musty basement evoked a sense of evil to Richie; each step closer to the bottom landing was a step that seemed closer to some inevitable doom. He felt fear start to clench his insides, nervousness making him stumble as Hotstreak took each step carefully.
“What’s going on?” Richie asked, hating the immense silence that radiated from the darkness. As soon as the question left his mouth, he was asking more. “What’s down here? Where are you taking me? What is this place? What are you going to show me? What was he talking about? What’s going on down here?”
Hotstreak pulled him along with no answers, reaching the bottom landing. The ceiling was low, making him duck just to take the last few steps onto the cold cement floor. Richie ducked as well, blinking fiercely, wishing his eyes could focus into the darkness and against his own fuzzy vision. He couldn’t see anything. Richie thought he heard soft rustling to his left, jerking his head about to squint in that direction. It was too dark to find any distinguishing shapes, and the rustling turned to faint murmurs.
“What is this place? What’s in here? What’s that sound?” he persisted, licking dry lips. “What are you going to show me? What’s going to happen? What happened in here?”
Fear clenched his chest, and he started at the sound of fingers snapping. Candles in various form immediately took to flame, alighting the area with a gruesome sort of glow that made Richie gape. Even without his glasses, he could see the darkness of the walls, the splatters on the concrete floor. He could see the shapes on the walls and could hear the muffled whimpering that persisted from the far back corner. There was a heavy sort of dread that coated his being as he took everything in. He knew the other man was watching him, not saying anything–he wondered how any human being could just stand by and allow such things to happen.
“I can’t see,” he whispered, squinting at the far corner. “I can’t see. What’s this room? What’s he doing in this room? I don’t have my glasses–what’s going on in here? What’s that over there?”
“I ain’t got no involvement with this place,” Hotstreak muttered, hating to be down here. He avoided looking around, focusing only on the squinting human being in front of him. “I didn’t touch nothin’ down here. He did this. He’s a twisted sort of fuck, and if you piss him off, he’s going to do things to you that I doubt you can imagine.”
“What does he do? What’s he doing? Is that a bed? Is there someone there?”
“...Yeah.” Hotstreak tried not to look. He was focusing on trying not to get sick. “Yeah, there’s someone there.”
“...What are they doing there? What’s going on? Is this some sort of cage, some sort of prison? What sort of sick operation are you two doing down here?” Richie asked, his voice rising as he started to recognize the shape of a human being on the bed. He could hear rustling, whimpering–he heard the faint clink of chains. His stomach clenched nervously, wishing that he could see clearly.
“I’m not involved!”
“You are too! If you know what’s down here and you know what they’re doing, you ARE involved!” Richie protested.
He turned to the walls, catching the shadows cast along the surface. There were skeletons, he realized, posed throughout the room. Both human and animal. The darker splotches of color throughout the area was posed, as if artfully splashed along any available, smooth surface. There were Polaroids posted everywhere. There was a counter of grimy tools and sharp objects spread along the length. Along with numerous bottles of lubrication, sex toys and sex manuals. Weaponry was stashed in crudely hanging shelves, along with boxes of ammo. Posters of questionable content hung near the staircase.
“What does he do down here?”
“What’s it look like to you?”
“...There’s...there’s someone there? Why won’t they talk?”
“He’s gettin’ crazy on me,” Hotstreak muttered, focusing on Richie’s growing expression of horror. “Has been for awhile. You know how hard it is to look at him, knowing he’s doing shit like this? My best friend turning into a fucking headcase that I feel I can’t trust anymore.”
Richie stilled, brow furrowing slightly. He thought of Virgil at that moment, vaguely wondering how he’d react if he’d stumbled onto a similar secret of his. He looked at Hotstreak, a little bothered with the intense stare he was being rendered with.
“No,” he replied. “I wouldn’t. Because I don’t have any friends.”
“Liar. There’s a black kid you were with, earlier. Both of you were chummy.”
“You sure that was me? Because I’m telling you, I don’t have any friends. I don’t know anybody. I don’t let anybody close.”
“...Whatever. Anyway, look long and hard, kid. Because whatever Harley’s got in mind over shit, an’ you piss him off, you’re going to come down here. I don’t know what he does down here to make ‘em scream, either. An’ none of those wussy screams you always hear in the streets. The kind that takes a long time to die out. The kind that goes on...and on...until nothin’ more comes out.”
Richie thought of the man’s madness in the alley. He looked over at the counter and realized he couldn’t feel his fingers. Even if he couldn’t see things directly, the pure horror he felt from the place was making an impact on him. He couldn’t quite see who was on the bed; their purpose. But the quiet whimpers were indication enough. He started to babble.
“I’d like to have my hands free, please. I can’t feel them. And I need my glasses. If I don’t have them on, I get really bad headaches. And I’d like to find my robot, please. I spent three years on him. I’d like to have him back before something gets to him. And–”
Hotstreak gave him a disgusted expression. “Shut up. I’m showing you what can happen to you, and you give me fuckin’ demands?”
Richie cast the room an uncertain look. But he thought of Backpack hiding in that sewer gate, obeying his command. Urgency hit him as he focused hard on the image. “I want my robot back. He needs repairs. At least let me get him back.”
Chains clinked, the rustle of material catching his attention. Hotstreak stiffened, eyes starting to dart over when he caught himself, focusing once more on the teen’s face. Richie looked over at the bed, squinting to see who was moving in that dark, ominous corner. His vision was so blurry that he saw nothing more than lumpy darkness shifting about.
“My name is Maria,” came the quiet, feminine voice. Hotstreak stilled, then looked over with puzzlement. “I have given him the key.”
“Wha...?” Hotstreak muttered, brow furrowing. “What are you talking about?”
Richie was confused, looking up at Hotstreak with bewilderment as chains continued to clink together with movement. A dark shape rose from the bed, revealing a preteen boy, whose ethnic origins Richie couldn’t determine in the darkness. He froze in place upon the person revealing himself, wearing only stained boxers and a flimsy undershirt that was torn under the arms. He grew alarmed at the sight of handcuffed wrists, the chains linked around the boy’s ankles. The boy looked dead on his feet as he faced them, eyes lifeless as they focused in on them.
He felt sick to his stomach, drawing back in involuntary horror as Hotstreak performed the same action.
“Oh, fuck,” he whispered, mainly to himself. He didn’t know Harley had taken in a kid. He had had a shred of hope that Harley had stuck mainly to adults. That shred was gone as he took in the bruises he could see on the boy’s face, chest; sickness built in his stomach, making his throat raw as a violent shudder raced through him. Questions tore through his thoughts, his mind frantically trying to remember when Harley had mentioned a new ‘project’. Violent nausea swept through him, and he struggled to remain upright as he thought of Harley touching him after being done with the boy.
“It is your turn, now,” the boy continued in that same womanly voice, and both males had to wonder just whom he was addressing. Bound hands swept under the thin mattress, retrieving a small silver key.
The item landed at Richie’s feet, clinking with a sort of musical interruption within the horrified silence. The boy said nothing more, but regressed back into the whimpering, frightened mess he had been earlier. As he sank to the dirty flood with a low cry of male pain, Richie stared at him in confusion. Hotstreak continued to stand there in nauseated shock, continuously swallowing back the lump of disgust that kept threatening to escape.
Crouching, Richie moved for the key. In the awkward shape that he was in, his fingers failed to grasp the object. The ties were much too tight around his wrists. In frustration, he turned and hesitated for a moment before picking the key up with his mouth.
“I didn’t know...”
He rose, squinting at the redhead upon hearing the whispered words. He looked back at the boy, feeling disgust for what he felt may have happened. He felt nothing more as the words he’d spoken earlier turned themselves over and over in his mind. What did the key go to? Who had the other key? What were they for? What were they supposed to do? Was it meant for him or Hotstreak? Who was the other him?
“Hey,” he mumbled, careful to keep the key ring in his mouth. “Hey. Help me. I need my hands.”
“I didn’t know...I didn’t know this was going on down here.”
Richie flicked the boy another glance, but the matter of the key was pressing on him. He nudged Hotstreak with an elbow. “My hands. Let me loose.”
Numbly, Hotstreak faced him. In a sort of dazed manner, he did as Richie asked, his own fingers clumsy and awkward as he sought to release the plastic ties. Once Richie had his hands free, he hissed between his teeth at the feeling of release. He rubbed his hands together, the pain shooting through his arms with stinging sensation. Carefully, he slid the key into his front pocket.
Free, his mind surged at the thought of getting back to his invention. Already working through repairs the robot needed, temporarily forgetting about what had just transpired. Chains moved, bringing him back to the boy. He frowned, shaking his hands through the air and hissing at the pain it caused.
“Let him go,” he ordered, making the other man jerk at the sound of his voice. “Now that the other one’s gone, let him go.”
Hotstreak hesitated, thinking of how pissed Harley would be if he came back and found that his ‘project’ was gone.
“Let him go,” Richie repeated, raising his voice. “Or are you scared of him?”
Hotstreak looked at him, then started to frown. Sensation was starting to come back to him at that moment, reminding him what he’d just done. What had just happened. He took a few moments to compose himself, then forced himself forward. The boy started to cry with his nearness, and incredible shame filtered through Hotstreak’s every limb. He went still as he looked upon the shadowed bed, the way the boy pressed himself into the wall in an effort to keep his distance.
And suddenly...suddenly things seemed to blur.
The candles, the shadows, the basement...it all started to fade. Turning into a large room. Where the windows allowed bright light to illuminate everything. Where the quilt was worn and faded...and the boy was different.
He jerked backward, feeling an overwhelming sensation of deja vu hit him.
“What are you doing?” Richie snapped at him, unaware of his mental torment. “Free him! Let him go!”
“Fuck!” Hotstreak snapped back, straightening to shot him a glare of irritation. “Fuck, you’re bossy.”
“Why are you hesitating? You’re contributing to an immoral act of perversion, and the more you linger, the more I start to wonder if you truly were unaware of the situation that was occurring down here!”
“I. Didn’t. Know!”
“Well, why are you hesitating?! Let him go!”
“Fuck!”
Hotstreak returned to the bed, reaching for the boy. At the keening wail of defeat, the boy went entirely limp. His hands were shaking as Hotstreak melted the chains from his ankles, immediate disgust and helpless guilt making his thoughts scatter as he worked on the handcuffs. When he was through, he gingerly set the boy on the floor. Thoughts of what may had been done on the bed made him jerk away, breathing hard.
The boy looked from one to the other, Richie moving aside to gesture at the staircase. With realization, the boy stared at the stairs in unseeing stillness. Once Richie was able to see him more clearly, feelings of horror and disgust started to arise in him once more. It was hard to tell what age the boy was underneath that skeletal frame.
Before any of them could move, the boy darted up the stairs in a flurry of movement. It took Richie a few moments to register that letting him out into the darkness was just the same as putting a gun to the kid’s head. Guilt momentarily hit him, but he brushed it away once he started thinking of Backpack’s much needed repairs. He looked at the still standing Hotstreak, who was staring off at the staircase in a daze. Narrowing his eyes, Richie waited for the redhead to register him. When it was apparent the man was off in his own thoughts, Richie turned and raced toward the stairs as well.
The man reacted, a part of him registering what was happening as he gave chase.
Richie was still struggling and shouting angrily as Hotstreak pulled him from the basement, slamming the door behind him. He was working on habit, his thoughts whirling over what he’d just seen down there. Continually horrified that Harley’s darkness had reached so far.
-A kid, he thought over and over again. What was he doing to that kid? Why didn’t I know?-
He pulled Richie along behind him, ignoring all his shouts and accusations as his eyes darted to various parts of the house. The kitchen, where they ate; where they looked over a map of Dakota to hunt for food and bully other survivors for their goods. The den, where they stored random treasures of value to each of them. The rooms upstairs...one of which they slept together. Slept and fucked and whispered plans for the future. He’d spent almost every day with this man for three years...Harley had been normal.
Until he let the darkness in.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN STATIC AND OTHER ASSOCIATED CHARACTERS!
This is based off Silent Hill, of which I do not own but worship. ^_^ Chapter titles are borrowed from the titles of SH2 and SH3 soundtracks...both of which I RECOMMEND if you’re into that sort of music, and both of which I do not OWN in any way.
Chapter Three:
End Of Small Sanctuary
Richie was cursing Virgil under his breath as he stiffly made his way through the back alleys, Backpack clinging determinedly to his front. The data that streamed constantly in the lenses of his goggle told him that Backpack had taken on some damage from Virgil’s electrocuting. It needed immediate repairs and was losing data due to memory damage. Richie was pissed that Virgil deliberately caused harm to his precious robot, and he hoped that it hurt Virgil when he’d shorted out. Virgil’s shock onto him had left him with stiff muscles and his wrists slightly raw.
His destination in mind, Richie figured he could hide his stolen food in various hiding areas throughout the city to ensure food for the next day. But Backpack needed instant repair, and his destination had tools awaiting him. He wouldn’t return to the Marriot. He gave Backpack the command to watch out for both man and creature, trying to shake out the stiffness in his limbs. Backpack was able to run a check through all the street cameras in the area, emitting a clearance.
But Richie detected problems in Backpack’s report, frowning at the broken streams of data. By the time he found the place–a veterinary clinic–he was once again cursing his friend. He shook his arms once more, Backpack’s weight uncomfortably heavy and bulky against his chest. He walked in through the back, Backpack leaping away from him to take point. Richie closed and locked the door behind him, quickly taping Zappers to the walls in case anybody managed to sneak in after him. They emitted an intense charge meant to stun a two hundred pound man. They’d come in handy plenty of times.
An hour later, Richie had taken half of Backpack apart, frowning at the mess Virgil had caused. He’d fried more than a few circuit boards and scrambled some memory chips, as well as damaged a few of Backpack’s arms. He had the parts to replace it all in the clinic–all his ‘homes’ had parts and tools that he would need for his inventions. Backpack was working on its third back-up generator in an effort to keep its security system running, quietly emitting secure commands from time to time. It wasn’t able to perform any other action, and Richie was nervous about it. His own connection to the robot was fuzzy, emitting static between them from time to time. Backpack was practically operating on its own fashion.
Richie had just finished replacing its last arm, aiming to reconnect all its parts when he realized he wasn’t alone. He looked up in alarm, watching a tall brunette drop several of his Zappers on the other end of the table. The man was well over six feet–muscled and grim in military-style clothing. Richie spied the full bandoleer, the slung rifle, the three handguns strapped to various areas of his body. The large Bowie knife strapped to his belt. He looked back at the man’s face, noting the steely facial expression. Even as the man moved to settle himself at the end of the table, Richie could not hear him move.
He looked in consternation at the disabled Zappers, mentally going over Backpack’s current working functions and their limits. He’d stabilized many of Backpacks’ malfunctioning components and repaired the missing data charges–the robot was able to do more than it had an hour ago. But then again, he had been looking for a time to test Backpack’s backup in terms of working capabilities and limits.
He heard noise from behind him. He jerked in the stool to see another man standing in the doorway, dropping more Zappers onto the counter next to him. This one wasn’t covered in weaponry as the other was–just dressed casually, as if he were out for some sort of stroll.
Richie frowned again, slowly lowering his soldering tool as the brunette smirked at him. He felt himself tense, vaguely bringing to mind moments in time where school bullies had snuck up around him to harass him when no one of authority was looking.
“Hey, kid. Finally caught up to you.” Harley looked over Backpack’s exposed parts, a little bewildered as to what he was seeing. He fiddled with attached wires that he couldn’t identify. He then cried out in shock as Richie smashed his fingers with his soldering tool. At the moment Harley pulled away, Backpack’s arms shot out to attach onto the former Marine’s biceps. A charge made the man stiffen in place, Richie sweeping all his tools and equipment into his messenger bag.
Once Backpack released Harley, the big man flopping to the floor with ungainly snarls as he convulsed, Hotstreak hesitated. That gave Richie enough time to withdraw a grenade-sized device from his bag and scoop Backpack up into the other arm. He hurled the Zap Trap at Hotstreak as Backpack sluggishly responded to his command to hold onto him. The Zap Trap exploded against Hotstreak, ensnaring him immediately as Harley shouted incoherently from the floor. The former Marine was struggling to rise as Richie jumped over him and ran for the door.
At that moment, Richie heard a particular sound–a massive roar, following heat that caused the room to fill with uncomfortable warmth. He slammed to a stop, shock registered on his face as he watched Hotstreak melt the ensnaring wire into nothingness. When he was free, he brushed off his clothes carefully, then looked up when Harley shouted at him furiously from the floor. Richie was startled into moving, running out the door. He glanced once more over his shoulder to seeing Hotstreak start after him, Harley rising to his feet.
Richie slammed the door shut behind him, holding onto Backpack with one arm and fumbling with his bag with the other. The door slammed open as he started running. He clumsily withdrew a Zap Cap from his bag, twisting slightly to hurl the device at the running man behind him. It exploded with a loud bang!, making the redhead cry out with surprise as he stopped short to avoid impact. Richie glanced over his shoulder to see that the flare had blinded the man, giving him time to flee down the street. Huffing and puffing, he took to another alleyway, eyeing the fire escape nearby.
Backpack alerted him to trouble at that moment, Richie gasping as several fireballs exploded around him. He fumbled with his messenger bag, withdrawing two Caps covered with blue tape. Whirling around, he saw Hotstreak stumbling after him, rubbing at his eyes and armed with a fireball in hand. Richie nervously eyed the phenomenon, trying to ignore the urge to ask questions, waiting for the right moment to throw. When Hotstreak saw that he was armed, he slammed to a stop, unsure of what Richie was holding. Both of them fought for breath, each one eyeing the other cautiously–waiting for the other to move.
Hotstreak then feinted right, hurling the fireball in hand at Richie’s feet; then twisting to throw another directly at him. Richie ducked, hurling the Cap and missing him as Hotstreak dodged left, charging at him. The Cap exploded with water, making him falter in his steps. Richie quickly hurled the other, dropping Backpack in the process.
Hotstreak cried out with anger as the water Cap hit him in the chest, exploding with a painful impact. Richie picked Backpack up, moving to run once more when Harley tackled him from behind. Both hit the pavement in a tangle of limbs and curses, Richie immediately swinging and kicking. Backpack’s arms shot out, grabbing a hold of Harley. Harley immediately twisted free, Backpack’s arms lighting up with a charge meant for the big man. Richie quickly grabbed another Trap, Hotstreak shouting with warning as he flung it at Harley. Wires missed by scant inches as Backpack’s rebar arms shot out to ensnare his legs. Richie grabbed Backpack at that moment, watching with dismay as Backpack began to lose power. Its arms lost its rigidity and strength, falling away from Harley as Hotstreak tackled Richie to the pavement once more.
With a shouting curse, Harley was on his feet, lunging over to snatch Backpack away from Richie as the teen struggled to get away from Hotstreak. Harley tossed Backpack away, reaching in to grab Richie’s left arm as he swung repeatedly at Hotstreak’s head. Both men struggled to hold onto him as he cursed and fought savagely, kicking at both of them. One boot landed into Harley’s groin, infuriating the former Marine. He began punching the teen, Hotstreak pulling away as Harley sought to restrain the teen for a more direct hit. Once he realized Harley was losing control of himself, he shoved at him, shouting.
But Richie wouldn’t give up–taking the punches in a dazed manner, his fingers curled into Harley’s face and yanked, looking for any sort of purchase against the bigger man. Harley pulled away with an enraged roar, blinking rapidly as stinging sensation caused his skin to burn painfully with the scratches. Hotstreak moved in to wrap his arms around Richie’s neck and left arm, pulling him into a fierce chokehold. Harley moved in to punch at him, Backpack scuttling forward in desperation. It wrapped its main arms around Harley’s legs and pulled hard. Harley fell to the ground with a loud curse, Hotstreak swinging Richie away, pushing him into the pavement in an effort to pull his arms back behind him. Harley turned, reaching for his .45 semiautomatic, firing repeatedly at Backpack.
Bullets bounced off or embedded within the steel hull, Richie crying out in alarm upon hearing gunshots. His struggle renewed, head snapping back to catch Hotstreak in the chin. Harley, once seeing his partner falter with impact, dove onto Richie, roughly shoving his knee into his back and shoving both bent arms high upon his back, making him scream with pain. Backpack’s rebar arms shot out, Hotstreak whirling around to hurl fireballs at the robot as Harley used all his weight to subdue the teen. Backpack was forced to retreat, finding cover behind a Dumpster as its sensors detected the heat.
Harley kept an eye on Backpack while pulling plastic cuffs from his pants pocket, managing to catch hold of Richie’s hands, tightening them painfully around his wrists. When Backpack pulled out the laser gun, every movement growing slow, Hotstreak covered his partner by spreading a ring of fire around them. From that ring, he drew several large balls of fire, hurling them at the Dumpster. The metallic object violently shifted position with every impact, scorch marks marring the walls and pavement, tires leaving black marks with every rough action.
Harley pulled Richie from the pavement, using him as a human shield. “Call it off!” he snarled as Backpack struggled to hold itself steady.
Richie stubbornly wrenched away from him, frantic to get to his invention before anymore harm came to it. Harley followed the movement, sweeping out a leg and tripping him, slamming him into the pavement, knee over neck as he grew intensely frustration with the lack of cooperation. When Richie continued to struggle, manic in his efforts to get to Backpack, Harley withdrew his weapon once more to hit him repeatedly with the butt, shouting at him to call the robot off.
Hotstreak saw the actions, flame dying out immediately. Backpack had stopped its attack, slumped due to loss of power. Hotstreak pulled Harley back, making him fall with a curse.
“Alive, dummy!” he snapped, glancing at Backpack before pulling Richie up, the teen sluggishly sitting on his knees, winded from the actions of earlier.
Harley was once more on his feet, stomping over to Backpack. Richie saw this, struggling to surge to his feet as all thoughts of protecting his invention overcame common sense. “Leave it alone!” he shouted, oblivious to the way his voice cracked. “Leave it alone! Don’t touch it!”
He shouted in anger as Harley picked Backpack up and hurled it down the alley, metal crunching loudly upon pavement. Hotstreak held onto Richie’s arm when the teen tried to go after it, frowning at Harley’s actions as the former Marine withdrew his MP5 from around his back, slamming a cartridge into place. He set himself steady as he fired repeatedly at the robot, which was weakly scurrying for cover into a nearby sewer gate. A couple of the bars were broken, allowing it to scuttle between them for cover.
Richie cried out in alarm, fearing Harley destroying Backpack. The robot kept losing contact with him, blinking in and out of power–he inwardly hoped that it wasn’t too badly damaged, already thinking of the repairs it would need when they escaped.
Harley grew tired of wasting ammo. He slung his weapon back over his shoulder, spitting blood from his mouth. He eyed the teen angrily, eyes full of venom and jaw tightly clenched. He walked back to them, ignoring Hotstreak’s disapproving expression. When he drew close enough, he jerked Richie away from him, shoving him to the pavement. He stepped in close, kicking the teen in the face–then punching his torso fiercely when he tried to curl up into a ball to protect himself. Hotstreak shoved Harley off, pushing him against the wall in an effort to jolt his senses.
“Knock it off!” he shouted, shoving him again. “What the hell’s wrong with you?!”
Harley shoved him away, aiming for more abuse when he cast Backpack a cautious look. The robot was half hidden in between the broken bars of the sewer gate. Seeing that both teen and machine were down, he started to calm.
“Fuck!” Hotstreak snapped, shooting him a furious look as he set himself between the teen and his lunatic lover. “Alive, idiot! What the fuck?! Calm the fuck down!”
Harley glared at him, checking his ammo pockets with agitated gestures. He then turned his glare at Richie, the teen glaring at him. He was bloodied and dirtied, but compliant, seeing that his invention was safe for the moment. Harley shoved Hotstreak away from him, withdrawing his hunting knife and lunging at Richie. The teen cried out with fear upon seeing the knife, falling onto his back to kick out. One boot caught Harley’s knee, the man stumbling before falling onto him. Hotstreak moved in to restrain him when Harley jerked the strap of Richie’s messenger bag up, slashing through that and ripping the bag from him. He cut away the vest upon finding pockets full of various items, deeming them a danger. All the while, Richie protested fiercely, struggling to get into a position where he could kick at him.
Upon realizing movement, he turned his head as Harley and Hotstreak caught sight of his robot moving forward, aiming to help.
“BACK!” he shouted as Hotstreak fired up a few more fireballs. “BACK! COVER!”
Backpack seemed to hesitate for a few moments, arms wavering with continued loss of power. It seemed reluctant as it scuttled back into the sewer, Hotstreak relaxing slightly. Satisfied that the robot was going to stay out of it, he looked back in time to see Harley spit into Richie’s face, jerking him to his feet.
“Son of a bitch!” he cursed heatedly, kicking him, then angrily jerking him back to his feet when he stumbled. “Fucking son of a bitch! Ruin my pretty face, you fucking bastard!”
Hotstreak shoved him once more with a bark of laughter. Harley hit the wall upon losing his grip on the teen, cursing upon impact. The three of them were panting for breath, the alley quiet for a few moments. Richie eyed them both with fierce anger, exhausted from the fight. Harley managed to catch his breath, glaring at him. He then looked at Hotstreak in annoyance.
“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” Hotstreak demanded, resting his hands on his hips. “What’s that all about?”
“He. Hurt. Me,” Harley ground out, pointing out his various injuries.
Hotstreak studied them, then nodded in solemn agreement. “Yeah. You got your ass whupped by a kid with his hands tied behind his back. Sucks to be you.”
Harley stared at him for a few dangerous moments, hand then dropping to the hilt of his gun. Hotstreak eyed that movement, then looked at him with a lifted eyebrow. The tension was thick, Richie holding his breath as he waited for one of them to move.
Hotstreak looked away, moving toward him. Richie uttered a protest as he was once more jerked to his feet. Harley moved away from the wall, snatching his goggle from his head. He then paused, startled at the unexpected weight of the object as Hotstreak watched. Harley looked at the lense, examining the object with bewilderment.
“Don’t,” Richie snapped at him. He endured Harley’s angered stare with one of his own. “Don’t break those. Those are important. I worked on those for a long time, and I don’t appreciate it being handled the way you’re doing. Just–put them back.”
Harley’s expression was clearly affronted. He tossed them into the air a couple of times, never taking his dark eyes from Richie’s, jaw tight. Then he relaxed. “Oh yeah? You worked on them a long time?”
He threw them onto the pavement, Richie crying out with dismay. He lunged at the man as Harley stomped on them with the heel of his boot. Richie’s teeth bore into his skin, the man screaming aloud, whirling to punch him. The blond fell awkwardly, fist missing him by scant inches as Harley lost his balance with the forceful throw. Hotstreak pushed between them to stop the abuse, shoving Harley away.
“Let’s go. We got ‘im, let’s get your stupid bounty,” he growled with impatience, dragging Richie alongside him. He had to use both arms when Richie lunged for Backpack, Harley examining some of his injuries with renewed anger.
Backpack stayed within the sewer gate as Harley passed by, muttering under his breath as Richie continued to protest their leave of his invention.
* - * - * - * - *
Virgil stared at the continuous blinking red light on his phone. He lowered it to look at the alley, confused. His flashlight illuminated the ruined mess. The silence and stillness of night was its usual abrupt discomfort. Fog was penetrating everything around him, moving through abandoned buildings like a silent snake. The temperature continued to drop, making his teeth chatter slightly.
He cast a nervous glance at the dark shadows of the alley, stepping forward. He hissed Richie’s name as he carefully stepped around lumps of ashes. He could smell acrid smoke and melted metal. He hadn’t any idea what had happened in the area, and had no idea why the signal on his phone told him that Richie was here.
He stumbled suddenly, nearly dropping his phone as his foot caught onto something that scuffed loudly against the pavement. The sound rang out against the alley walls, making him wince. The glow of his flashlight told him he’d stumbled over Richie’s messenger bag. Horror dashed through his veins, rendering his blood cold. For a few moments, he was blind with it.
Legs shaking, mind frantic over the thought that his friend was dead, he found that the strap had been slashed. The bag was intact–a few feet over, he saw the brown vest Richie had been wearing. It looked slashed as well. His mind numbly went over the scenario–that his friend walked into some sort of demon trap, becoming the next unfortunate victim of some creature that then carried his body off to feast–
He realized that the shiny lump nearby was Backpack. His friend had never been without Backpack for as long as the invention had been created. Horror made his brain buzz. He couldn’t lift his legs to move as he saw the inanimate object, feeling extreme feelings of guilt and intense sadness filter through all his thoughts and emotions; then he realized that Backpack’s hull was damaged with bullet holes. He recognized bullet holes.
He was painfully reminded of his mother’s drive-by death.
It was as if he’d lost connection with time and space at that moment; recalling his mother’s funeral. The newspaper articles; the printed comments of bystanders. Intense feeling made Virgil’s insides clench with a violence that overrode all his hard-earned survival instincts; he focused out the murderous world of Madelyn’s Purgatory, lost in all the memories of his mother’s death.
Fog intensified. Cold grew stronger. Ice crystals began to form on everything around him, silence roaring with the sort of buzzing that made it impossible to discern true quiet.
Then a mechanical screaming ripped him from his past, resetting his internal programming with violent reaction. He whirled, ready to fend off the creature that had interrupted his flashbacks when he realized the screaming was echoing through the streets from a distance. He was safe; but reminded of what dangers lurked when one wasn’t paying attention.
Sluggishly, Virgil moved over to Backpack, noting the damage done to its hull. He shakily crouched next to the invention, examining the unretracted limbs and the melted areas. He cast the flashlight around himself once more, looking for telltale blood. Morbidly wanting to see the normal clues of a shooting; evidence of his friend’s death. He saw many shells–some that varied from others–and bulletholes throughout the walls and pavement. But no blood or gore.
He was shaking heavily as he searched, stomach clenching and unclenching; he realized that the alleyway was covered with scorch marks that were pockish in design. They streaked against the walls, melting the Dumpster; they decorated the pavement and left trash in scattering ashes. He caught the glint of metal and realized he was looking at Richie’s glasses. Another foot and he saw the trashed matter of his snowboarding goggle.
And he realized, just upon looking at all the haphazard items, that his friend wasn’t dead at all. Virgil grit his teeth, thinking of the men that had chased them from the fire station. He picked up the broken pair of glasses, examining them; as if they’d tell him where Richie was. Frustrated in that his tracking device hadn’t led him directly to his friend, Virgil forgot about Maria and the key she’d left him.
He grabbed the messenger bag, stuffing the ruined vest inside. He picked up the ruined robot, and climbed the Dumpster. With as much care possible, he hid Backpack and the bag within the destroyed contents of the container, then leapt away. He scanned the alley, trying to guess what had happened. He realized that there were footprints from ash all over the place–a few led toward the back of the alley.
Virgil smiled grimly, mind racing as he followed the footprints in ash.
* - * - * - * - *
Harley hissed as he applied hydrogen peroxide to the teeth marks on his chest, bare torso heaving as he endured the stinging pain. He capped the bottle, sopping up the excess with a cotton ball. He then used that to wipe at the scratches on his face, hissing at that as well. He scowled over at the teen, who was glowering at him from the chair he was sitting on. One wrist was handcuffed to the chair’s back. Both were still tightly bound with the plastic tie.
Harley lowered the cotton to the table, growing irritated with the quiet stare. Finally, he returned his attention to the bite, smearing Vaseline over it before applying gauze and tape.
The table had the photo of the bounty, Richie spotting it when the bottle of hydrogen peroxide was moved.
Hotstreak was sitting in a chair nearby, fingers clenching his hair as he stared at the dirty floor, listening to Harley’s every movement. The room was quiet save for the fireplace that cackled upon occasion.
The house was small, located in a once middle class section of Dakota’s west end. It proudly boasted of a den, living room, kitchen and dining room on one floor, and a staircase that led up to a couple of rooms above. Everything had been redesigned into a fortress against the elements outside. The windows were boarded over. The door was a trick. There were many escape hatches throughout every room, as well as weaponry taking over available space. Candles sat everywhere.
Food wrappers and containers were piled in the kitchen. Bags of refuse were stacked neatly near the fireplace. The fireplace was absurdly large, but it made sense when one of the occupants welded fire.
“I’ll contact them,” Harley said, his voice breaking the tense stillness of the room. “They’re never in the same place. Maybe I can get more added to the bounty.”
“Blackmail? Is that smart?” Hotstreak asked, not really paying attention to what he was saying.
“Of course it is. I want that bounty. But I think, with all the trouble we went through, we should be given more,” Harley said, pulling on an undershirt before pulling his gray USMC shirt over that. “Maybe hunting grounds in the Hills.”
“...You’re the one that wants the arsenal. I could give a fuck.”
“Their little underground operation really isn’t very much,” Harley continued, shooting him an irritated look. “Just a bunch of faggots dressed in hardcore military clothing. There’s no organization. They’re probably just pedophiles. Let them have the kid. I just want that bounty.”
“They got connections outside of Dakota, too. I doubt it’s very small.”
“How do you know that, huh? You know shit that I don’t?”
“I was listening to them. They got people all over the place. Not necessarily named the underground, either. Whatever they are, they ain’t no two-bit group.”
“Where’d you hear that at?”
“Them guys at the fire station were talking about some meeting or another with some guys from Nebraska. They mentioned Alva a few times. The old fuck must have some connections or somethin’ to have a bunch of guys working for him.”
“...Alva, huh? Thought the bastard died in the invasion.” Harley began gathering all his medical supplies into a worn box, shooting Richie a glare. The teen had dried blood on his face from a bloodied nose, blond hair askew from sweat drying at his hairline. The imprint of where his goggle had rested had left certain areas of his hair flat; there was a tanline on his forehead. He’d lost his glasses in the fight in the alley.
“Whatever Alva gots planned, it’s all on him,” Hotstreak muttered, brushing his fingers through his hair. He straightened in his chair, glaring at the picture atop of the table. “We’re going tonight?”
“I’ll go, first. Stay here with him. I don’t want you fucking up my negotiating with your dumb mouth.”
Hotstreak shot him a glare as Harley rose from his seat. The former Marine redressed in his bulletproof vest and bandoleer, pulling over various other weaponry as well. There was a Polaroid camera nearby. He used it to take a picture of the dirtied teen, who winced upon the bright light that briefly illuminated the room. Set, he pulled his flashlight out from his belt.
“I might be awhile. They didn’t leave us with a contact man or destination. I’m going to head up to the military compound, then check the lab area. You’re in charge. Don’t fuck it up.”
“It’s not there.”
Both men looked up sharply as Richie spoke, gesturing at his chin at the picture on the table. Harley froze, his forehead furrowing.
“I was just there, two days ago. They loaded up all that stuff and sent them to Valentine. That’s in Nebraska, if you don’t know your geography.”
Both men exchanged a look, Harley snatching the photo from the table to look at it, as if he could see that happening. Hotstreak gave Harley a pointed look. “See? Told you. They were shady, anyway.”
“He’s fuckin’ lying,” Harley said in disgust, tossing the photo down. “He’s just saying shit.”
“I wouldn’t lie,” Richie ground out, glaring at him. “I watched them do it. They’re lying to you.”
Harley started to snap at him when he frowned, pining him with a look. “You know who these people are?”
“No. But I doubt it’s an army against Madelyn.”
“Madelyn’s a myth. A rumor.”
“Then you’re just as stupid as your face looks.”
Harley’s jaw tightened, eyes growing wide with rising fury. Hotstreak sighed as he wiped his own face, the day’s events catching up to him. Stubbornly, Richie held the expression the former Marine had on his face. Harley started to move when Hotstreak rose with a heavy sigh.
“Go check it out on the sly,” he said with an accompanying yawn. “Maybe he’s lying, maybe he ain’t. Find out for yourself.”
Harley started to relax, but the comment on his face was still burning fury in him. He touched the swollen scratches on his left cheek, sweeping his fingertips over his dark eyebrows. With another glare, he left the kitchen. A door slammed moments later.
The kitchen was quiet save for the fire crackling nearby. Richie shifted uncomfortably in the seat he was handcuffed to. Hotstreak was lost in his own thoughts, running a hand against the stubble on his face as he stared up at the cobwebbed ceiling.
The blond grimaced, feeling the various injuries he’d gained through the scuffle earlier. Two of his teeth felt loose, and he tongued them gently, hoping they’d stay where they were. Blood had caked along his nose, cheek and chin; it was an uncomfortable feeling. He kept thinking of Backpack’s safety, wondering if the robot had managed to find some cover.
He looked over at the other man, tugging at the handcuffs that kept him in place. He wanted to complain about the lack of feeling in his hands, but he felt that he shouldn’t. In this position, he was reminded of the day he’d landed himself in juvenile detention. He’d spent three hours sitting in a chair after his last electronic scam, waiting for those in charge to decide what to do with him.
His eyes darted over the various objects on the tabletop, wondering what he could use to get loose. Harley was creepy; he definitely didn’t want to stick around the man for very long. He looked at Hotstreak, judging his character based on what he’d seen. There was something funny about the both of them, something he just couldn’t touch.
He searched for something to say, something polite in order to have the plastic tie taken off his wrists. He thought of Virgil, feeling a little angry that the other boy wouldn’t know what was happening to him because of their fight. He wondered when Virgil would realize that Richie was in trouble. He wondered if Virgil would even care. He was probably too hurt over their fight to even bother with thinking of him nicely.
“My hands hurt,” he said curtly, glaring at the redhead. The man jerked, as if startled out of his thoughts, reminded that he was there. “Can you loosen these ties?”
He kept his glower as Hotstreak studied him with a sort of bored expression. Richie tried to guess how old he was, squinting at him as he took in the dark red hair, dark brows and square chin. When he said nothing, Richie frowned. It hurt to wiggle his fingers.
Wood popped in the fireplace, and he sulked as he sat back in the chair. It was an uncomfortable situation, and he didn’t know what to do with himself. He didn’t want to sit here in silence; nor tied to a damn chair. Not when the house could be broken into by creatures. He was a sitting duck!
“I have to go to the bathroom,” he tried. He thought of the other juveniles, the ones he’d seen that had been handcuffed before their court hearings. They had been tough and mocking; he tried to adapt that same attitude to keep from showing his fear.
“Too bad,” Hotstreak muttered, leaning on the table. He began picking at his nails.
Richie glowered at him. Seeing that he was going no where, he sighed low. The silence was maddening. His fingers itched to have something in them to occupy himself and his thoughts. Frustration over Backpack left him impatient, angry. He kicked at a table leg, startling the redhead into glaring at him.
Awkwardly, Richie looked away. He glowered at the living room.
The silence was getting to him. He opened his mouth and began to recite every Dr. Seuss book he remembered. Starting with “The Cat in the Hat”. By the time he was going over “Hop on Pop”, Hotstreak couldn’t tune him out any longer.
He pushed back from the table, startling Richie out of his recitation. The blond watched as Hotstreak eyed him for several moments, then rose from his chair. Fear tightened his throat as he wondered what the man was going to do to him.
“You’re lucky I’m not him,” Hotstreak muttered, picking up the key to the handcuffs and releasing Richie from the chair. “C’mon. I’m going to show you something.”
“Are you going to let me go?”
“Nope. I’m just gonna show you a warning.” Hotstreak held firmly onto one arm, Richie following along with a sort of trepidation as he was pulled toward a doorway nearby. Curiosity made him eager to see what Hotstreak was going to show him; why the man made it sound so damn ominous.
* - * - * - * - *
The stairs were narrow and dark. The dark and musty basement evoked a sense of evil to Richie; each step closer to the bottom landing was a step that seemed closer to some inevitable doom. He felt fear start to clench his insides, nervousness making him stumble as Hotstreak took each step carefully.
“What’s going on?” Richie asked, hating the immense silence that radiated from the darkness. As soon as the question left his mouth, he was asking more. “What’s down here? Where are you taking me? What is this place? What are you going to show me? What was he talking about? What’s going on down here?”
Hotstreak pulled him along with no answers, reaching the bottom landing. The ceiling was low, making him duck just to take the last few steps onto the cold cement floor. Richie ducked as well, blinking fiercely, wishing his eyes could focus into the darkness and against his own fuzzy vision. He couldn’t see anything. Richie thought he heard soft rustling to his left, jerking his head about to squint in that direction. It was too dark to find any distinguishing shapes, and the rustling turned to faint murmurs.
“What is this place? What’s in here? What’s that sound?” he persisted, licking dry lips. “What are you going to show me? What’s going to happen? What happened in here?”
Fear clenched his chest, and he started at the sound of fingers snapping. Candles in various form immediately took to flame, alighting the area with a gruesome sort of glow that made Richie gape. Even without his glasses, he could see the darkness of the walls, the splatters on the concrete floor. He could see the shapes on the walls and could hear the muffled whimpering that persisted from the far back corner. There was a heavy sort of dread that coated his being as he took everything in. He knew the other man was watching him, not saying anything–he wondered how any human being could just stand by and allow such things to happen.
“I can’t see,” he whispered, squinting at the far corner. “I can’t see. What’s this room? What’s he doing in this room? I don’t have my glasses–what’s going on in here? What’s that over there?”
“I ain’t got no involvement with this place,” Hotstreak muttered, hating to be down here. He avoided looking around, focusing only on the squinting human being in front of him. “I didn’t touch nothin’ down here. He did this. He’s a twisted sort of fuck, and if you piss him off, he’s going to do things to you that I doubt you can imagine.”
“What does he do? What’s he doing? Is that a bed? Is there someone there?”
“...Yeah.” Hotstreak tried not to look. He was focusing on trying not to get sick. “Yeah, there’s someone there.”
“...What are they doing there? What’s going on? Is this some sort of cage, some sort of prison? What sort of sick operation are you two doing down here?” Richie asked, his voice rising as he started to recognize the shape of a human being on the bed. He could hear rustling, whimpering–he heard the faint clink of chains. His stomach clenched nervously, wishing that he could see clearly.
“I’m not involved!”
“You are too! If you know what’s down here and you know what they’re doing, you ARE involved!” Richie protested.
He turned to the walls, catching the shadows cast along the surface. There were skeletons, he realized, posed throughout the room. Both human and animal. The darker splotches of color throughout the area was posed, as if artfully splashed along any available, smooth surface. There were Polaroids posted everywhere. There was a counter of grimy tools and sharp objects spread along the length. Along with numerous bottles of lubrication, sex toys and sex manuals. Weaponry was stashed in crudely hanging shelves, along with boxes of ammo. Posters of questionable content hung near the staircase.
“What does he do down here?”
“What’s it look like to you?”
“...There’s...there’s someone there? Why won’t they talk?”
“He’s gettin’ crazy on me,” Hotstreak muttered, focusing on Richie’s growing expression of horror. “Has been for awhile. You know how hard it is to look at him, knowing he’s doing shit like this? My best friend turning into a fucking headcase that I feel I can’t trust anymore.”
Richie stilled, brow furrowing slightly. He thought of Virgil at that moment, vaguely wondering how he’d react if he’d stumbled onto a similar secret of his. He looked at Hotstreak, a little bothered with the intense stare he was being rendered with.
“No,” he replied. “I wouldn’t. Because I don’t have any friends.”
“Liar. There’s a black kid you were with, earlier. Both of you were chummy.”
“You sure that was me? Because I’m telling you, I don’t have any friends. I don’t know anybody. I don’t let anybody close.”
“...Whatever. Anyway, look long and hard, kid. Because whatever Harley’s got in mind over shit, an’ you piss him off, you’re going to come down here. I don’t know what he does down here to make ‘em scream, either. An’ none of those wussy screams you always hear in the streets. The kind that takes a long time to die out. The kind that goes on...and on...until nothin’ more comes out.”
Richie thought of the man’s madness in the alley. He looked over at the counter and realized he couldn’t feel his fingers. Even if he couldn’t see things directly, the pure horror he felt from the place was making an impact on him. He couldn’t quite see who was on the bed; their purpose. But the quiet whimpers were indication enough. He started to babble.
“I’d like to have my hands free, please. I can’t feel them. And I need my glasses. If I don’t have them on, I get really bad headaches. And I’d like to find my robot, please. I spent three years on him. I’d like to have him back before something gets to him. And–”
Hotstreak gave him a disgusted expression. “Shut up. I’m showing you what can happen to you, and you give me fuckin’ demands?”
Richie cast the room an uncertain look. But he thought of Backpack hiding in that sewer gate, obeying his command. Urgency hit him as he focused hard on the image. “I want my robot back. He needs repairs. At least let me get him back.”
Chains clinked, the rustle of material catching his attention. Hotstreak stiffened, eyes starting to dart over when he caught himself, focusing once more on the teen’s face. Richie looked over at the bed, squinting to see who was moving in that dark, ominous corner. His vision was so blurry that he saw nothing more than lumpy darkness shifting about.
“My name is Maria,” came the quiet, feminine voice. Hotstreak stilled, then looked over with puzzlement. “I have given him the key.”
“Wha...?” Hotstreak muttered, brow furrowing. “What are you talking about?”
Richie was confused, looking up at Hotstreak with bewilderment as chains continued to clink together with movement. A dark shape rose from the bed, revealing a preteen boy, whose ethnic origins Richie couldn’t determine in the darkness. He froze in place upon the person revealing himself, wearing only stained boxers and a flimsy undershirt that was torn under the arms. He grew alarmed at the sight of handcuffed wrists, the chains linked around the boy’s ankles. The boy looked dead on his feet as he faced them, eyes lifeless as they focused in on them.
He felt sick to his stomach, drawing back in involuntary horror as Hotstreak performed the same action.
“Oh, fuck,” he whispered, mainly to himself. He didn’t know Harley had taken in a kid. He had had a shred of hope that Harley had stuck mainly to adults. That shred was gone as he took in the bruises he could see on the boy’s face, chest; sickness built in his stomach, making his throat raw as a violent shudder raced through him. Questions tore through his thoughts, his mind frantically trying to remember when Harley had mentioned a new ‘project’. Violent nausea swept through him, and he struggled to remain upright as he thought of Harley touching him after being done with the boy.
“It is your turn, now,” the boy continued in that same womanly voice, and both males had to wonder just whom he was addressing. Bound hands swept under the thin mattress, retrieving a small silver key.
The item landed at Richie’s feet, clinking with a sort of musical interruption within the horrified silence. The boy said nothing more, but regressed back into the whimpering, frightened mess he had been earlier. As he sank to the dirty flood with a low cry of male pain, Richie stared at him in confusion. Hotstreak continued to stand there in nauseated shock, continuously swallowing back the lump of disgust that kept threatening to escape.
Crouching, Richie moved for the key. In the awkward shape that he was in, his fingers failed to grasp the object. The ties were much too tight around his wrists. In frustration, he turned and hesitated for a moment before picking the key up with his mouth.
“I didn’t know...”
He rose, squinting at the redhead upon hearing the whispered words. He looked back at the boy, feeling disgust for what he felt may have happened. He felt nothing more as the words he’d spoken earlier turned themselves over and over in his mind. What did the key go to? Who had the other key? What were they for? What were they supposed to do? Was it meant for him or Hotstreak? Who was the other him?
“Hey,” he mumbled, careful to keep the key ring in his mouth. “Hey. Help me. I need my hands.”
“I didn’t know...I didn’t know this was going on down here.”
Richie flicked the boy another glance, but the matter of the key was pressing on him. He nudged Hotstreak with an elbow. “My hands. Let me loose.”
Numbly, Hotstreak faced him. In a sort of dazed manner, he did as Richie asked, his own fingers clumsy and awkward as he sought to release the plastic ties. Once Richie had his hands free, he hissed between his teeth at the feeling of release. He rubbed his hands together, the pain shooting through his arms with stinging sensation. Carefully, he slid the key into his front pocket.
Free, his mind surged at the thought of getting back to his invention. Already working through repairs the robot needed, temporarily forgetting about what had just transpired. Chains moved, bringing him back to the boy. He frowned, shaking his hands through the air and hissing at the pain it caused.
“Let him go,” he ordered, making the other man jerk at the sound of his voice. “Now that the other one’s gone, let him go.”
Hotstreak hesitated, thinking of how pissed Harley would be if he came back and found that his ‘project’ was gone.
“Let him go,” Richie repeated, raising his voice. “Or are you scared of him?”
Hotstreak looked at him, then started to frown. Sensation was starting to come back to him at that moment, reminding him what he’d just done. What had just happened. He took a few moments to compose himself, then forced himself forward. The boy started to cry with his nearness, and incredible shame filtered through Hotstreak’s every limb. He went still as he looked upon the shadowed bed, the way the boy pressed himself into the wall in an effort to keep his distance.
And suddenly...suddenly things seemed to blur.
The candles, the shadows, the basement...it all started to fade. Turning into a large room. Where the windows allowed bright light to illuminate everything. Where the quilt was worn and faded...and the boy was different.
He jerked backward, feeling an overwhelming sensation of deja vu hit him.
“What are you doing?” Richie snapped at him, unaware of his mental torment. “Free him! Let him go!”
“Fuck!” Hotstreak snapped back, straightening to shot him a glare of irritation. “Fuck, you’re bossy.”
“Why are you hesitating? You’re contributing to an immoral act of perversion, and the more you linger, the more I start to wonder if you truly were unaware of the situation that was occurring down here!”
“I. Didn’t. Know!”
“Well, why are you hesitating?! Let him go!”
“Fuck!”
Hotstreak returned to the bed, reaching for the boy. At the keening wail of defeat, the boy went entirely limp. His hands were shaking as Hotstreak melted the chains from his ankles, immediate disgust and helpless guilt making his thoughts scatter as he worked on the handcuffs. When he was through, he gingerly set the boy on the floor. Thoughts of what may had been done on the bed made him jerk away, breathing hard.
The boy looked from one to the other, Richie moving aside to gesture at the staircase. With realization, the boy stared at the stairs in unseeing stillness. Once Richie was able to see him more clearly, feelings of horror and disgust started to arise in him once more. It was hard to tell what age the boy was underneath that skeletal frame.
Before any of them could move, the boy darted up the stairs in a flurry of movement. It took Richie a few moments to register that letting him out into the darkness was just the same as putting a gun to the kid’s head. Guilt momentarily hit him, but he brushed it away once he started thinking of Backpack’s much needed repairs. He looked at the still standing Hotstreak, who was staring off at the staircase in a daze. Narrowing his eyes, Richie waited for the redhead to register him. When it was apparent the man was off in his own thoughts, Richie turned and raced toward the stairs as well.
The man reacted, a part of him registering what was happening as he gave chase.
Richie was still struggling and shouting angrily as Hotstreak pulled him from the basement, slamming the door behind him. He was working on habit, his thoughts whirling over what he’d just seen down there. Continually horrified that Harley’s darkness had reached so far.
-A kid, he thought over and over again. What was he doing to that kid? Why didn’t I know?-
He pulled Richie along behind him, ignoring all his shouts and accusations as his eyes darted to various parts of the house. The kitchen, where they ate; where they looked over a map of Dakota to hunt for food and bully other survivors for their goods. The den, where they stored random treasures of value to each of them. The rooms upstairs...one of which they slept together. Slept and fucked and whispered plans for the future. He’d spent almost every day with this man for three years...Harley had been normal.
Until he let the darkness in.