The Confluence

The Confluence Part XIV

Suzie had two more of the feral people both running full tilt at her. She squeezed the shotgun's trigger, and despite all the screaming and how badly her ears were ringing throughout all the gunshots, the dry click was the loudest thing to her. As a young man ran at her, with a femur bone raised, she swung the stock of the shotgun across her face with brutal efficiency, hitting the man's cheek bone in a loud snap. His head jerked to the side mid run, sending the rest of his body to follow. As he was knocked out of the way, a huge naked man quickly took his place. Suzie whimpered immediately at the sight of her father, just as cold but so alien to her. Her father, hands all too familiar with hurting her body, crouched and ready to attack; Stark naked and painted and running at her, closing the distance between them just as often as he had done to her back at home. All the terror she had felt came rushing into her mind, but the feel of warm blood on her face, the adrenaline running through her system, and all that she had overcome in this absolute fucking nightmare of a night grounded her. It was time to put an end to the feeling of helplessness she had always felt throughout her life. Every barrier she had come across so far she dealt with. Well, almost. She still had one running at her, the worst possible obstacle to be facing with an empty shotgun. Letting out a strangled, desperate cry that accentuated the terror and resolve within her that were fighting for control. Suzie flipped the shotgun so she was holding the scalding barrel in an almost sword-like fashion, raising the end of the stock high into the air as her father charged towards her, hands raised. She screamed with fury and swung the butt down straight for her father's head. She held her eyes closed, and felt the stock slap into flesh. But something was off. Her arms were still too high in the air for where his head should've been. She opened her eyes, trying to prepare for the inevitable. With the smallest of sobs, she saw that her father had caught the stock before it had even touched him with his bare hands. With a swift and brutal motion, he tightened his grip of the stock and twisted it out of Suzie's hands, herself gasping in pain as her hands realized how burned they were. Frank tossed the gun aside with a grunt, as Suzie looked horrified at her burned and bleeding hands. He took two steps towards her, and with one hand grabbed her by the throat and picked her up, her feet leaving the ground. The sudden force of a rough and hardened hand closing like a bear trap over her throat snapped her back. She was eye level with her father, as he took another step forward and slammed her into the rock wall, the unforgiving stone cracking one of her ribs as the sharp chunks of rock dug hungrily into her back. She squirmed against the grip of Frank's hand, but it did not budge an inch. Black spots were popping in front of her eyes and she began to desperately hit the arm that held her. Gasping for air that refused to go down her closed off throat, she brought one of her knees up to her chest, and planted her booted foot in the center of Frank's chest and tried to push him off her. He backed up enough and the pressure on her neck lessened enough for her to suck in a lungful of air through her throbbing throat, before Frank pushed back. Now with a little more room, she drew back her leg again and kicked him square in the chest. Frank grunted as he was knocked two steps back, leaving him open. Without any hesitation, Suzie swung her leg back, and then up right between her father's legs, steel toed boot mashing into his groin. He doubled over, clutching his manhood, as Suzie, coughing and crying, looked quickly around. The only thing nearby was a chunk of rock that looked big enough. She stumbled as quickly as she could over to it, and despite her horrendously burned hands she fought through the pain as she heaved the rock up. She turned, tears streaming down her face. Frank was still on the ground when Suzie stepped directly above him. "Fuck you asshole." Suzie rasped, and brought the rock down on her father's head. The blow cracked something, but Suzie brought the rock up and back down, and felt her father's skull loosen. The rock was dripping as she raised it and swung down again squishing the already shattered skull, and again, wetly slamming into the mush that had become Franks head, and she swung it again, each time now harshly screaming as she brought it down, turning her father's head into an unrecognizable pulpy mess of grey brain matter, shards of skull and teeth, and two eyes that been blown out of his head on the second swing. She finally stopped hitting the bloodied gore smeared ground where Frank's head had been, immediately felt her throat constrict and her gut clench as puke spewed out of her mouth. She wiped the flecks of vomit off her lips and looked around. Adrian was barely standing amidst seven naked corpses, most with split skulls. He was covered head to toe in blood, it was dripping off his eyebrows and his shaking hands. Most of the blood wasn't his, but she noticed the blood leaking out of his mouth, and more spilling down his side. He was staring at Anderson, still standing proudly in front of the grotesque statue. Adrian held one of the wooden spears in his right hand. Suzie watched as Adrian took a deep breath, and without a word of warning, hurled the spear towards Anderson. Anderson held up a hand that immediately started bleeding all by itself as some bizarre glyph burned into his skin. The air seemed to shiver around his bloody hand, and the spear stopped itself mid flight, a foot from his face. "Oh holy fuck." Suzie whispered. Anderson made a sweeping motion with his hand and the spear flung itself aside. "God damn you Anderson!" Adrian growled at him through bared teeth. "There is no god there to damn me you stupid fool." Anderson responded. "You should've left when I gave you the chance." Anderson turned his strangely glittering eyes to Suzie. "And you, poor lost child. You could've lived through your empty life without these terrible things happening to you but no, you just had to lead this little troublemaker to the dwelling of the Kintarok." Adding a disturbing teasing lilt to his voice as he said this last. Suzie gazed back at Anderson, his left hand still bleeding from the fresh rune that had carved into his flesh, standing proudly before the statue that looked like two like two gastropods mating. "I just wanted fucking answers, Anderson. There hasn't been a problem I couldn't solve until I came here." Adrian was still flashing his teeth with rage at Anderson. "That first corpse... You already knew about it didn't you? All the bad shit that has happened here, you know about it all." Anderson turned back to Adrian. "Damn right I do, young man!" he said with a wicked grin. "I was there when they first came you know. They can show you such wondrous things, and give you the most amazing gifts. I don't think a new wrinkle has shown up on my face for hundreds of years." As he said this, he turned his back to the two of them. Suzie reached as quickly and quietly as she could into the depths of the the trench coat pocket, breathing a sigh of relief as she felt the cylinders of shotgun shells. She cast her eyes to where the shotgun lay, a bare few feet from her. As she was doing this, Adrian saw a chance with Anderson's back turned. He rushed forward, hatred for this monster fueling his blood drained body. He was ten feet away, eight feet, six feet, and just as he pushed off the rocky ground, leaping into the air, Anderson stuck his hand out again, this time a large rune burning itself into Anderson's ribs. Somehow, impossibly, Adrian felt the air itself crush down onto his neck. He floated about four feet in the air, his throat slowly collapsing. He could almost hear his vertebrae splinter, and it was the worst pain he had ever known. It consumed his nerve endings like fire and everything was going dark except for Anderson's eyes that flashed green and yellow. Suzie scrabbled for the shotgun as Adrian made his attack, and loaded only a single shell into the tube of the shotgun as he was lifted by shivering air. She knelt down on one knee, took aim, and squeezed the trigger. Almost before the sound of the shotgun made her ears ring, Anderson's arm obliterated itself in meaty chunks, the hand somehow staying whole, and his ragged bicep geysering blood. Whatever tether there was snapped and Adrian collapsed, knees buckling immediately when he hit the ground. Suzie howled in triumph that mixed in with Anderson screams of agony. "Oh you little bitch!" Anderson slavered, spit flying from his mouth. "I'll laugh as the children devour your insipid flesh you cunt!" His neon glowing eyes turned to her, and using his only arm, the air started shaking around a loose rock the size of a soccer ball and it launched itself at Suzie. She threw herself to the side, but it still caught her on her leg, impacting her calf so badly she screamed in pain herself. She tried to load another shotgun shell, her sweaty hands having difficulty holding the shell still enough to load it. Anderson moved his hand to find another rock, but Adrian had recovered. He had grabbed a spear, and thrust it forward up into Anderson's armpit. He howled again, the sound tearing at Suzie and Adrian's ears. Leaving the spear in Anderson, Adrian grabbed another one, and aiming for Anderson's unhurt arm, stove it through his forearm. The wood punched through his arm, the skin indenting around the wood, and then began to bleed. Suzie regained some control as she watched Adrian grab a third spear, and loaded another shell. Adrian thrust the third spear through Anderson's thigh, blood spraying out of the exit wound, splattering the disgusting statue with Anderson's blood. Suzie began limping as fast as the pain in her hurt leg could let her. Putting any weight on it at all made it want to buckle, to give up and just let herself drop, but she kept walking. Anderson in a final animalistic attempt to kill Adrian, with three spears sticking out of him shot his head forward, teeth snapping at Adrian's neck. Adrian stumbled backward, almost falling over. Suzie got to them, and with a swift motion, shoved the barrel of the shotgun deep into Anderson's mouth. He bit down on the metal barrel, shattering a few of his teeth. Anderson tried to cry out in pain, but Suzie forced the barrel deep into his throat. All Anderson could get out was a deep gagging sound and Suzie pulled the trigger. The force of the buckshot going off exploded Anderson's skull with a wet pop. Warm blood sprayed all over Suzie, hunks of meat and brain slapping into her face. Anderson's weird eyes liquefied, their strange glow fading into nothingness. Silence finally fell over the cave, leaving nothing but the heaving breath of Suzie and Adrian.

Suzie turned to Adrian, who was hunched over, blood dripping down from his multiple wounds. "I did it. I got him, Adrian. It's finally-" Suddenly a loud cracking sound interrupted her. Suzie watched Adrian's eyes widen, and there was another loud crack from behind her. Suddenly she felt a strange tugging behind her, and she turned around. The statue of Sa-Dis and Fa-Kaos had two massive cracks running through it. "What the fuck is happening?" Suzie whispered, almost in awe. Just as she said this, another loud snap came out of the statue as a third crack appeared in the stone. And then another, spidering out from the rest of the cracks. There seemed to be white light coming out of the cracks. One of the carved stalks of what she presumed to be the thing's eyes split off and fell to the ground, shattering on impact. The thing's strange intertwining torso split, light spilling from the rift. The two parts separated from the horrific maw down to the weird lumpy tail as the halves broke apart, and Suzie saw something that she still never could fully comprehend. At the center of the crumbling statue was a hole. Her eyes had trouble understanding what she was seeing. Bits of the crumbling stone seemed to almost be sucked into the light filled hole in reality. The air around it was shaking, and the stone around it seemed to be rippling, as if it was liquid. There was a sound coming from it that sounded like an ocean, and that alien ozone-like smell seemed to spill from the white hole. It was the size of a basketball and the strangest thing about it was how it looked both two dimensional and three dimensional at the same time. "What the the fuck is that Adrian?" Adrian gazed into it, slack jawed. "I think it's...I think it's a way into whatever place those Kintarok that Anderson was talking about are from." Suzie stared at Adrian. "And... I think I want to go in."

"Are you fucking crazy, man?" Suzie said to him. "You don't know what's in there! It could kill you just by going through it!" Adrian only moved closer to it. "I'm sorry Suzie. I have to know." He kept walking towards it, ignoring Suzie's protests. "You stay here. Wait for me, okay? I'll try to come back for you."

"God fucking dammit Adrian! What is worth knowing if it just kills you?" Adrian gave her a small sad smile. "Truth. That's all I've ever wanted in this world. I don't believe in a god, never have, despite my mom's attempts to get me to believe in something. But here," he said, gesturing to the glowing tear in reality. "Here, I think I have something tangible. Tangible enough to make monsters both human and inhuman. And I have to know the truth." With that said, Adrian put his hand into the hole as Suzie screamed his name.