 |
A dull, crimson haze hung over the city. They were there, of course. They had been
there for some time.
Months, was it? Years?
Sam didn’t know anymore. He didn’t really care. He’d long since given up hope that
the nightmare would end and he would wake to the world as it should be. Safe in his
bed, he would feel the warmth of his old cat dozing upon his legs, with the smell of his
mom’s raspberry pancakes wafting up from the kitchen downstairs.
No.
That was no longer an option. Tender images of his mom in his memory were
replaced by grisly flashes of her flayed corpse, oozing onto the floor.
She was dead. They were all dead.
Except Kelly. She had seen her share of loss, of course. Perhaps even more. Sam
really only had his mom back in the old days. Kelly had left behind both parents and
three siblings. Technically, only one of her siblings was dead. The other two should
be.
Kelly’s soft hand reassuringly caressed his shoulder. Sam stepped away from the
crack in the boarded up old window and gave her a quick smile. “The city is full of
them,” he said quietly.
“Better there than here,” replied Kelly returning to the table where she was cleaning
her shotgun. “Should we head back towards La Crecenta?”
Sam leaned up against the wall and sighed. “We could, but they know us there. They’
ll be waiting.” He looked up at Kelly. The pale moonlight shone on her golden skin,
illuminating the gentle curves of her face. My god she’s beautiful, thought Sam.
Would she have ever spoken to me before all this?
“We’ve traveled from one coast to the other, and they are always waiting for us, Sam,”
she responded bitterly. “Christ, I swear they can actually smell us coming!” With a
reassuring click, she loaded a pair of cartridges into the freshly-cleaned weapon. “I’d
just rather not have to make it through Los-friggen-Angeles with those monsters out
there. Do you remember how bad New York was? “
The scars on the back of Sam’s wrists were more than enough to jog his memory.
“You’re right,” he mumbled, shifting his weight. “I guess I just…”
He halted mid sentence. After all this time, his ears were trained to pick up the telltale
sounds of the killers’ infernal singing. Kelly must have heard it too, because she had
already dropped into an aggressive stance, gun at the ready. The voices were
getting closer, all the while chanting that dreadful dirge.
“Can you full the Sunshine? Does it brighten up your day?”
Kelly silently motioned to him, indicating that the singers were about 200 feet away.
They must be passing by the overgrown hedges surrounding the house, thought Sam.
With any luck, they would just keep on walking.
Suddenly, the singing ceased. Only a cacophony of crickets filled the aural void.
Kelly stiffened and tightened her grip on her firearm. Sam reached down and tried to
grab the knife that was holstered on his leg.
The silence hung thick and heavy, threatening to smother the two teens hiding out in
the abandoned building. Where could the singers have gone?
Suddenly a force blew the window open, sending shards and splinters across the
room. Debris pelted Sam and a mysterious figure launched themselves through the
window. The intruder was slightly chubby, dressed in black, and sported an orange
stripe in her hair. When she looked up at Sam, he could see that here eyes were
almost completely black, shining in the darkness like lustrous ebony.
“We only need one,” she croaked in a raspy voice.
Before Kelly had a chance to react, the intruder hurled a sizable shard of glass across
the room. It sliced through Sam’s neck, unleashing a torrent of blood. Gasping, he
crumpled to the floor, clutching his hemorrhaging throat. His vision begin to fade as
darkness closed around him, buffering him from the searing pain.
The last two sounds he heard were Kelly’s sobbing, and the sounds of the shotgun
hitting the floor.
____________________________________________________________________
His bed was so warm. Swaddled in the sheets of his bed, he awaited the smell of his
mom’s pancakes once more.
Slowly Sam realized that the sent in the air was not that of hot cakes, but the sickly,
greasy smell of raw meat. Shifting around, Sam realized that he was not in his bed at
all, but laying on the floor of the vacated home. Someone had thrown a sheet over
him, through the old linen was now saturated with congealed blood.
I should be dead, thought Sam, gingerly touching his throat. It hurt like hell, but the
bleeding seemed to have stopped. The errant shard of glass lay on the floor beneath
him, shining like a red jewel in the moonlight. It must have missed my carotid artery,
he mused. How long have I been out?
A sudden realization struck him, which stung far worse than any wound – Kelly was
gone!
Sam stumbled to his feet, slipping on the still-warm slicks of blood that surrounded
him. Kelly’s shotgun lay in multiple pieces on the floor, yet here was no sign of his
partner. A cursory inspection of the small house yielded no signs of her either. She
was really gone, taken by one of those monsters. After so many nights, traveling
across the country, fending off those maniacs, Kelly had finally fallen to them.
Or perhaps, not.
There was no body, though Sam. If those maniacs want to kill, they do so, and they
aren’t subtle about it. After seeing thousands of flayed, stuffed and stitched corpses
littering the streets and homes of America, Sam knew this all too well. Perhaps Kelly
was still alive?
No. He was delirious. They never left anyone alive outside of their ranks. To hope
was to delude one’s self. Hope was a weakness – one that that thing and his followers
preyed upon.
And yet, perhaps hope was all there was left. Without Kelly, there really would be no
point in pushing on. It’s not like there was a future for mankind anymore.
Across the last four states, they were the only living people Sam could find that hadn’t
pledged their souls to that monster. If Sam’s life had any ounce of purpose left, it was
tied to the woman he had come to love. If she was still alive, he had to search for her.
Looking out the shattered frame of the house’s window, he stared into the distance.
The City of Angels lay out there. The crimson glow of the skyline seemed to be
getting brighter and brighter. Was it a gathering? Could that be where Kelly was
taken?
____________________________________________________________________
It had been a nerve-racking journey. Carrying nothing but his knife for protection,
Sam had made his way through the empty wastelands that had once made up the
suburbs. Every passing shadow conjured horrific images in his head of crazed
attackers, lying in wait. Perpetually scanning his surroundings, Sam was desperately
hunting for some evidence to Kelly’s whereabouts. At any moment, he expected to
see her mutilated corpse, forever dashing his hopes.
But he never did.
Nor was he attacked. For some reason, the streets were safe that night. Waves of
nostalgia washed over him as he traipsed through the shadowy streets. He
remembered the days when he used to navigate his own neighborhood – without fear
of disembowelment. That was before the nationwide curfew.
Of course, Sam had heard of the Sonic R curse. He and all his other message board
friends had. It seemed like a stupid legend, however. Just a retarded tale to scare
babies. If only he’d paid attention. If only he’d recognized the signs.
At first it just seemed like crime was on the rise. The odd kid would vanish. A few
would turn up dead. Eventually it got bad enough that people started getting worried.
The news said it was a cult. They though it was some kind of trench coat mafia.
When an entire auditorium full of students was wiped out, people made snap
judgments. Websites were shut down and games were recalled. That’s when the
curfew was instated. All those steps did nothing to prevent it, however. Every day,
more bodies were found. More children disappeared and people began having mass
hallucinations of floating fox dolls. Legend turned into fact, and the truth was no
longer out there but in here. It was in your schools, in your neighborhood, and in your
home. Families were literally torn apart and rational folks were massacred by the
Doll's self-proclaimed servants. By the time the Seven emerged…
Sam halted in his tracks.
He was on the outskirts of the city now, and he could see the source of the sickening
red glow. The streets were clogged with countless hunters. Each carrying a rag doll
under their arms. Atop each orange doll was a single red jewel, burning brightly in the
umbra of the cracked and broken buildings. The hunters looked mostly human,
though most of them were covered in dried blood. Their eyes were as black as tar.
This sea of fallen humanity shuffled along, pressing against each other in a human
cattle drive, deep into the city. They hummed in unison, keeping a familiar, yet
terrifying tune.
Where were they going? Sam stuck to the shadows as he pressed on, following the
damned on their journey, all the while scanning the crowd for Kelly. There was no
sign of her or her kidnapper anywhere.
Eventually, Sam discovered the monsters’ destination. A large amphitheater had
been erected in the center of the city. Breaking into a gutted office building two blocks
away, Sam climbed to the roof and watch the gathering from a higher vantage point.
A sea of servants had amassed around the amphitheatre, all singing that horrible
song. The din was positively thunderous.
Scanning the crowd, Sam saw a tableau of terror. Not only were their countless
hunters in the crowd, but some of the fox dolls appeared to be hovering in mid air,
mutely awaiting the grim spectacle to come.
Suddenly the singing ceased. A hush fell over the crowd. Something was happening
upon the stage.
A beautiful woman stood there. Dressed in a kimono, she was a vision of perfection.
Her Japanese features shone with a pale radiance despite the hellish red ambiance.
She appeared to be addressing the crowd, though her mouth was not moving. The
audience stood in rapt attention as the woman gestured to them, and then to figure
being dragged onstage by several others.
Kelly.
It was her all right. She was struggling violently to escape her captors, but her
delicate mouth had been stitched shut. Those lips he yearned to kiss were now
cinched with gore-soaked twine, stifling her plaintive cries. Even from his vantage two
blocks away, Sam could see the tears that glistened on her bruised cheeks.
Unable to control the emotions welling up inside him, Sam shouted as loudly as he
could.
“Kelly!”
In the silence, his voice echoed like a gunshot, reverberating off of the hollow husks of
the buildings that once made up downtown.
One by one, every head turned towards him. Billions of dead, soulless eyes stared at
him in silent judgment. The sheer force of their cold, unified gaze forced Sam to take
a step back. No one said a word, however. The woman on stage merely smiled. Her
teeth looked far sharper than they ought to be.
The woman turned to Kelly and cocked her head. Kelly did not even look up. She
merely nodded her head. Suddenly, the mysterious woman began to change. An
indescribably noise rang out, and the one beautiful woman was transformed into a two-
tailed fox doll. This one was different than the others in the crowd, however. It looked
far older. Colors faded and seams worn, it was positively an antique.
And it was floating up, across the crowd and towards Sam.
Sam realized with mounting dread that this was not just another one of those wretched
dolls. This aged relic was perhaps the Doll. The alpha that begot the omega. He
spun around to make a mad dash for the emergency stairwell.
It was already waiting for him.
Somehow, the old doll was hovering before him, staring with horrible, expressionless
eyes. It was not more than a few feet from his face. The chill winds of the rooftop
caused its twin tails to dance gently beneath it as it bobbed slowly in mid air. It
smelled faintly of cherry blossoms and musk. Somewhere, deep in his terror-stricken
mind, Sam heard single word spoken in a silent voice. Watch, it commanded.
With that, the doll rushed past him and disappeared over the edge of the roof.
Fighting to remain in control of his body, Sam hurried over and looked out after it.
The doll was heading for the stage now. It was rapidly approaching Kelly.
“No,” shouted Sam, “Stay away from her!” His voice was lost on the wind.
The doll arrived back on the stage. Kelly’s captors pulled her hair back, forcing her
beautiful brown eyes to look up at the doll.
“God dammit! Don’t do this!” yelled Sam.
The Doll drew closer to her now. Its red gem pulse rhythmically now, like the beating
of a frenzied heart. Kelly tried to scream, but the twine that bound her lips held fast.
“Kelly!,” hollered Sam hoarsely, vainly. “I love you!”
The broken shell of Kelly’s body hit the floor seconds later. Not long after, a portal
opened up on stage, swirling red mist pouring forth from within. The Doll changed
shape one more. This time it took the form of an elegant, silver fox. It looked at all of
the gathered masses, lingering for but a brief moment, then lept into the portal. As
the enigmatic gate closed behind it, the attendant crowds begin to disperse. Their
ranks were no longer orderly, but like a legion of school children finally excused for
summer break. The hunt was on once more, but they knew where to find their prey.
Standing on the precipice of the rooftop, Sam looked upon the incoming surge of
monsters and maniacs. He couldn’t even muster the will to run. The doll had ripped
out his heart – he cared not for what happened to his soul. Pitching forward, he let
gravity take hold of him and propel him to his fate.
As he rushed to meet the demented crowds below, he thought once more of his warm
bed, his old cat, and his mom’s--
there for some time.
Months, was it? Years?
Sam didn’t know anymore. He didn’t really care. He’d long since given up hope that
the nightmare would end and he would wake to the world as it should be. Safe in his
bed, he would feel the warmth of his old cat dozing upon his legs, with the smell of his
mom’s raspberry pancakes wafting up from the kitchen downstairs.
No.
That was no longer an option. Tender images of his mom in his memory were
replaced by grisly flashes of her flayed corpse, oozing onto the floor.
She was dead. They were all dead.
Except Kelly. She had seen her share of loss, of course. Perhaps even more. Sam
really only had his mom back in the old days. Kelly had left behind both parents and
three siblings. Technically, only one of her siblings was dead. The other two should
be.
Kelly’s soft hand reassuringly caressed his shoulder. Sam stepped away from the
crack in the boarded up old window and gave her a quick smile. “The city is full of
them,” he said quietly.
“Better there than here,” replied Kelly returning to the table where she was cleaning
her shotgun. “Should we head back towards La Crecenta?”
Sam leaned up against the wall and sighed. “We could, but they know us there. They’
ll be waiting.” He looked up at Kelly. The pale moonlight shone on her golden skin,
illuminating the gentle curves of her face. My god she’s beautiful, thought Sam.
Would she have ever spoken to me before all this?
“We’ve traveled from one coast to the other, and they are always waiting for us, Sam,”
she responded bitterly. “Christ, I swear they can actually smell us coming!” With a
reassuring click, she loaded a pair of cartridges into the freshly-cleaned weapon. “I’d
just rather not have to make it through Los-friggen-Angeles with those monsters out
there. Do you remember how bad New York was? “
The scars on the back of Sam’s wrists were more than enough to jog his memory.
“You’re right,” he mumbled, shifting his weight. “I guess I just…”
He halted mid sentence. After all this time, his ears were trained to pick up the telltale
sounds of the killers’ infernal singing. Kelly must have heard it too, because she had
already dropped into an aggressive stance, gun at the ready. The voices were
getting closer, all the while chanting that dreadful dirge.
“Can you full the Sunshine? Does it brighten up your day?”
Kelly silently motioned to him, indicating that the singers were about 200 feet away.
They must be passing by the overgrown hedges surrounding the house, thought Sam.
With any luck, they would just keep on walking.
Suddenly, the singing ceased. Only a cacophony of crickets filled the aural void.
Kelly stiffened and tightened her grip on her firearm. Sam reached down and tried to
grab the knife that was holstered on his leg.
The silence hung thick and heavy, threatening to smother the two teens hiding out in
the abandoned building. Where could the singers have gone?
Suddenly a force blew the window open, sending shards and splinters across the
room. Debris pelted Sam and a mysterious figure launched themselves through the
window. The intruder was slightly chubby, dressed in black, and sported an orange
stripe in her hair. When she looked up at Sam, he could see that here eyes were
almost completely black, shining in the darkness like lustrous ebony.
“We only need one,” she croaked in a raspy voice.
Before Kelly had a chance to react, the intruder hurled a sizable shard of glass across
the room. It sliced through Sam’s neck, unleashing a torrent of blood. Gasping, he
crumpled to the floor, clutching his hemorrhaging throat. His vision begin to fade as
darkness closed around him, buffering him from the searing pain.
The last two sounds he heard were Kelly’s sobbing, and the sounds of the shotgun
hitting the floor.
____________________________________________________________________
His bed was so warm. Swaddled in the sheets of his bed, he awaited the smell of his
mom’s pancakes once more.
Slowly Sam realized that the sent in the air was not that of hot cakes, but the sickly,
greasy smell of raw meat. Shifting around, Sam realized that he was not in his bed at
all, but laying on the floor of the vacated home. Someone had thrown a sheet over
him, through the old linen was now saturated with congealed blood.
I should be dead, thought Sam, gingerly touching his throat. It hurt like hell, but the
bleeding seemed to have stopped. The errant shard of glass lay on the floor beneath
him, shining like a red jewel in the moonlight. It must have missed my carotid artery,
he mused. How long have I been out?
A sudden realization struck him, which stung far worse than any wound – Kelly was
gone!
Sam stumbled to his feet, slipping on the still-warm slicks of blood that surrounded
him. Kelly’s shotgun lay in multiple pieces on the floor, yet here was no sign of his
partner. A cursory inspection of the small house yielded no signs of her either. She
was really gone, taken by one of those monsters. After so many nights, traveling
across the country, fending off those maniacs, Kelly had finally fallen to them.
Or perhaps, not.
There was no body, though Sam. If those maniacs want to kill, they do so, and they
aren’t subtle about it. After seeing thousands of flayed, stuffed and stitched corpses
littering the streets and homes of America, Sam knew this all too well. Perhaps Kelly
was still alive?
No. He was delirious. They never left anyone alive outside of their ranks. To hope
was to delude one’s self. Hope was a weakness – one that that thing and his followers
preyed upon.
And yet, perhaps hope was all there was left. Without Kelly, there really would be no
point in pushing on. It’s not like there was a future for mankind anymore.
Across the last four states, they were the only living people Sam could find that hadn’t
pledged their souls to that monster. If Sam’s life had any ounce of purpose left, it was
tied to the woman he had come to love. If she was still alive, he had to search for her.
Looking out the shattered frame of the house’s window, he stared into the distance.
The City of Angels lay out there. The crimson glow of the skyline seemed to be
getting brighter and brighter. Was it a gathering? Could that be where Kelly was
taken?
____________________________________________________________________
It had been a nerve-racking journey. Carrying nothing but his knife for protection,
Sam had made his way through the empty wastelands that had once made up the
suburbs. Every passing shadow conjured horrific images in his head of crazed
attackers, lying in wait. Perpetually scanning his surroundings, Sam was desperately
hunting for some evidence to Kelly’s whereabouts. At any moment, he expected to
see her mutilated corpse, forever dashing his hopes.
But he never did.
Nor was he attacked. For some reason, the streets were safe that night. Waves of
nostalgia washed over him as he traipsed through the shadowy streets. He
remembered the days when he used to navigate his own neighborhood – without fear
of disembowelment. That was before the nationwide curfew.
Of course, Sam had heard of the Sonic R curse. He and all his other message board
friends had. It seemed like a stupid legend, however. Just a retarded tale to scare
babies. If only he’d paid attention. If only he’d recognized the signs.
At first it just seemed like crime was on the rise. The odd kid would vanish. A few
would turn up dead. Eventually it got bad enough that people started getting worried.
The news said it was a cult. They though it was some kind of trench coat mafia.
When an entire auditorium full of students was wiped out, people made snap
judgments. Websites were shut down and games were recalled. That’s when the
curfew was instated. All those steps did nothing to prevent it, however. Every day,
more bodies were found. More children disappeared and people began having mass
hallucinations of floating fox dolls. Legend turned into fact, and the truth was no
longer out there but in here. It was in your schools, in your neighborhood, and in your
home. Families were literally torn apart and rational folks were massacred by the
Doll's self-proclaimed servants. By the time the Seven emerged…
Sam halted in his tracks.
He was on the outskirts of the city now, and he could see the source of the sickening
red glow. The streets were clogged with countless hunters. Each carrying a rag doll
under their arms. Atop each orange doll was a single red jewel, burning brightly in the
umbra of the cracked and broken buildings. The hunters looked mostly human,
though most of them were covered in dried blood. Their eyes were as black as tar.
This sea of fallen humanity shuffled along, pressing against each other in a human
cattle drive, deep into the city. They hummed in unison, keeping a familiar, yet
terrifying tune.
Where were they going? Sam stuck to the shadows as he pressed on, following the
damned on their journey, all the while scanning the crowd for Kelly. There was no
sign of her or her kidnapper anywhere.
Eventually, Sam discovered the monsters’ destination. A large amphitheater had
been erected in the center of the city. Breaking into a gutted office building two blocks
away, Sam climbed to the roof and watch the gathering from a higher vantage point.
A sea of servants had amassed around the amphitheatre, all singing that horrible
song. The din was positively thunderous.
Scanning the crowd, Sam saw a tableau of terror. Not only were their countless
hunters in the crowd, but some of the fox dolls appeared to be hovering in mid air,
mutely awaiting the grim spectacle to come.
Suddenly the singing ceased. A hush fell over the crowd. Something was happening
upon the stage.
A beautiful woman stood there. Dressed in a kimono, she was a vision of perfection.
Her Japanese features shone with a pale radiance despite the hellish red ambiance.
She appeared to be addressing the crowd, though her mouth was not moving. The
audience stood in rapt attention as the woman gestured to them, and then to figure
being dragged onstage by several others.
Kelly.
It was her all right. She was struggling violently to escape her captors, but her
delicate mouth had been stitched shut. Those lips he yearned to kiss were now
cinched with gore-soaked twine, stifling her plaintive cries. Even from his vantage two
blocks away, Sam could see the tears that glistened on her bruised cheeks.
Unable to control the emotions welling up inside him, Sam shouted as loudly as he
could.
“Kelly!”
In the silence, his voice echoed like a gunshot, reverberating off of the hollow husks of
the buildings that once made up downtown.
One by one, every head turned towards him. Billions of dead, soulless eyes stared at
him in silent judgment. The sheer force of their cold, unified gaze forced Sam to take
a step back. No one said a word, however. The woman on stage merely smiled. Her
teeth looked far sharper than they ought to be.
The woman turned to Kelly and cocked her head. Kelly did not even look up. She
merely nodded her head. Suddenly, the mysterious woman began to change. An
indescribably noise rang out, and the one beautiful woman was transformed into a two-
tailed fox doll. This one was different than the others in the crowd, however. It looked
far older. Colors faded and seams worn, it was positively an antique.
And it was floating up, across the crowd and towards Sam.
Sam realized with mounting dread that this was not just another one of those wretched
dolls. This aged relic was perhaps the Doll. The alpha that begot the omega. He
spun around to make a mad dash for the emergency stairwell.
It was already waiting for him.
Somehow, the old doll was hovering before him, staring with horrible, expressionless
eyes. It was not more than a few feet from his face. The chill winds of the rooftop
caused its twin tails to dance gently beneath it as it bobbed slowly in mid air. It
smelled faintly of cherry blossoms and musk. Somewhere, deep in his terror-stricken
mind, Sam heard single word spoken in a silent voice. Watch, it commanded.
With that, the doll rushed past him and disappeared over the edge of the roof.
Fighting to remain in control of his body, Sam hurried over and looked out after it.
The doll was heading for the stage now. It was rapidly approaching Kelly.
“No,” shouted Sam, “Stay away from her!” His voice was lost on the wind.
The doll arrived back on the stage. Kelly’s captors pulled her hair back, forcing her
beautiful brown eyes to look up at the doll.
“God dammit! Don’t do this!” yelled Sam.
The Doll drew closer to her now. Its red gem pulse rhythmically now, like the beating
of a frenzied heart. Kelly tried to scream, but the twine that bound her lips held fast.
“Kelly!,” hollered Sam hoarsely, vainly. “I love you!”
The broken shell of Kelly’s body hit the floor seconds later. Not long after, a portal
opened up on stage, swirling red mist pouring forth from within. The Doll changed
shape one more. This time it took the form of an elegant, silver fox. It looked at all of
the gathered masses, lingering for but a brief moment, then lept into the portal. As
the enigmatic gate closed behind it, the attendant crowds begin to disperse. Their
ranks were no longer orderly, but like a legion of school children finally excused for
summer break. The hunt was on once more, but they knew where to find their prey.
Standing on the precipice of the rooftop, Sam looked upon the incoming surge of
monsters and maniacs. He couldn’t even muster the will to run. The doll had ripped
out his heart – he cared not for what happened to his soul. Pitching forward, he let
gravity take hold of him and propel him to his fate.
As he rushed to meet the demented crowds below, he thought once more of his warm
bed, his old cat, and his mom’s--