Phantom Pain (trilogy)

Joel and Dominic

Chapter 16: Joel and Dominic

The first thing I noticed was that the reception desk had a chunk taken out of it.

The second thing was potted plants and chairs: overturned. A broken window left a puddle of water on the tiled floor.

Facing us were about twenty possessed bodies, standing with the shadows. Drake and Dez began firing automatically. Thankfully, none of the demons had guns. Those trying to get into the underground must have been special. The rest of us attacked as well. I ducked as one of the demons swung a fire axe at my head. Crude, but terrifying. I wondered what would happen if I lost my head.

There was also something even more disturbing about the atmosphere in the room.

“There are still humans here!” I yelled to Dez, while slashing open the neck of what had once been a women in a pencil skirt.

I could feel them: upstairs, terrified.

It took much too long to dispatch this batch of possessed. When we finished Dez and I were both panting and Dominic clutched a wound on his arm. Blood gushed out over his fingers. I could heal it, but that would take power I desperately needed. With Kera and I combined, we might be able to move through the storm unaffected.

“There are people here,” I repeated, this time to Drake. Turning to the mystery women I said, “don't go running off into the storm. We're going to go find them. You can take them to that school of yours, keep them safe.”

The women nodded. “Of course.”

We split up, trying to search as much of the building as possible. Judging by the number of possessed, and the fact that most people had probably gone home before the storm, I guessed there wouldn't be many to find. At least we could save these few. The boarding school the woman had spoken about sounded like a perfect base of operations, just like Castle Moore, but I knew that wasn't an option. It was obvious, from her predicament, that she was part of the secret society that had taken Gavyn. Dez and I couldn't just march right up to their gates. We could send some of the others—the humans—to scope it out.

I was on the ninth floor when I heard movement. Listening very carefully, I followed what was partly intuition to a closed office door. I opened it cautiously, and there was a scream. Two figures crouched behind a desk. One of them clutched a stapler, raising it between her and me, as I approached.

“It's alright.” I held my hands above my head. “I'm here to help, but we've got to get out of here. This place is crawling with demons.”

The woman slowly straightened her legs, and she lowered the stapler hand half way.

“Don't trust him!” A hand shot out, grabbing the woman’s wrist. “Demons? How stupid do you think we are? He's as crazy as the rest of them, just look at him.”

The woman’s eyes flickered between me and the man cowering behind the desk.