- Clair
“The System isn’t here to torment people, to kill them. It’s here to protect them. Force them to become strong enough to stand a chance. Against the things out there. The monsters, the real ones. The ones that claw against the walls of Creation, demanding to be let in. Because, now and then, one of them slips through the cracks.”
– ????
To be fair, Clair’s day already sucked pretty badly beforethe minotaur showed up. It had started innocently enough. Driving to investigate the burnt-out town. Finding the bullet holes in the houses that hadn’t been burned down. No bodies, though. Fast forward to about half an hour ago, when the fister (yeah, she was calling it that) showed up from behind the shell of Amity’s gas station. Just popped out from behind the ruptured, half-melted tanks. It proceeded to make short work of the car, flipping it on it’s side and turning it into a pile of scrap. Seriously, f*** that thing.
They’d been pinned down here for since then, stuck right in the middle of the street, between the station and the town hall. The shotgun had more than pulled it’s weight. She’d swapped out the shells for heavy slugs, filling the entire drum magazine with them, then started firing back. Taken a while to figure out the pattern, but she was getting it.
It could project invisible punches, she’d learned the hard way. One had hit her right in the chest, and without the vest, her ribs would have crushed. That, and it did the whole rocket-fist thing if she actually damaged it. That, and that f****** vanishing Skill. Getting the timing right on shooting into that one was tricky as f***. Had to time it perfectly, just as it faded back in, or it was useless.
She was getting somewhere, she knew that much. It wasn’t obvious, but the thing was shrinking every time it produced a new fist. It also hadn’t tried to flank them, just force it’s way through the car. Not the smartest or just overconfident? Worked for her, either way. Tommy was f****** useless, again. He was cowering behind the engine block, instead of helping out. She’d considered rolling him a grenade to throw, but he’d probably just blow up both of them. Screw that.
Then the minotaur had joined the party. Just came out from behind one of the houses. She hadn’t heard the damn thing, thanks to the ear plugs she had in. But boom, there it was, tall, covered in armor and lumbering at them.
Sweat trickling down her tank top, she grasped the sweat-slick foregrip of the shotgun, snapped it up and fired a heavy slug right at it’s center mass. Wasn’t the most accurate, this thing, but holy hell if it didn’t pack a punch. The recoil was a bitch and a half, and her shoulder knew that by now. But it had oomph. The beast stumbled backwards, the round plowing into the shield it carried and rocking it back.
Like it should. She taken a safe shot at a boulder with this thing. From behind cover. A wise choice, that. The slug she sent on it’s merry way had drilled a hole right on through the rock. Like she said, oomph.
Still, she didn’t stick around to reminisce. Scrambling back into cover, she grabbed Tommy and yanked him up. They had to get moving. The car was toast. So were the buildings around them. Amity’s main street hadn’t survived the drive-by and the inferno that followed. Only one building had. The public school.
Leaving the monsters behind, she pushed Tommy ahead of her, yelling at him to run while she sprinted after him. Any other day, she would have outran him twice over, but the weight of the armored vest and lugging around the fricking heavy shotgun slowed her considerably. Despite that, she made good time, ignoring the bellow that came from behind her and hauling ass across the street, through the blackened remnants of someone’s yard, and towards the red brick building near the general store.
It was the only thing still in one piece in the town. A partially-melted chainlink fence surrounded the torched playground out back, where peeling cast-iron soccer nets and crisped basketball hoops stood. They were coming in from the side, aiming at the front doors. Clair’s heart was going a mile a minute, and her adrenaline was through the roof. Her clothes were caked to her skin, and the stupidass combat boots she had brought were f****** heavy on her feet. Laced too tight for running. She thought of using Burst to speed herself up, but that would likely just break her own feet.
Funny how you noticed all those things when there was impending doom following you.
They hit the chainlink fence running. Or at least, Clair did. Tommy was winded by then and was having a hell of a time getting over the fence. She helped him with that. Planted one hand on his ass and heaved. He went over.
She tossed the shotgun over, then grit her teeth and climbed herself. The hot metal seared her fingers, thin links all but cutting into her flesh. The weight of the vest threatened to drag her down, but Clair kept going, wiggling her boots into toeholds barely large enough to hold her up. She dragged herself over the top, sweat in her eyes and muscles screaming for release.
Without further ado, she hopped off, the landing sending a hard jolt through her ankles. She nearly stumbled from the lack of support under her right one, but straightened herself, scooped the shotgun off the floor and hustled after Tommy.
Behind her, the fence rattled and bulged inwards as an invisible fist slammed into it. The fister was still following them. Tommy reached the front door first, running up the concrete steps and yanking uselessly on the locked double doors, trying to pull them open.
Clair didn’t waste time on anything so futile. Instead, she shoved him out of the way and slammed the butt of the shotgun through the glass pane on the right door, sending glass inwards. Panting, she knocked away any remaining fragments, reached in and pushed down the bar from the inside.
They locked the door after them. Trying the light switch did nothing. No surprise at that, really. The power being on was more of a Hail Mary thing than an actual hope. It also meant that they needed to spend Krolls. She told Tommy as much, and got him to purchase two flashlights. One for himself the other an under-mounted attachment to her gun. She braced herself there, against the wall, barrel pointed out of the broken window as time crawled by and he f***** around, fumbling over his status screen. It was even hotter in here than it had been outside, the brick building serving as an oven.
Although, mercifully, the faint taste of smoke in the air had cleared.
She was feeling worn down right about now. A straight half-hour of constant adrenaline pumping was taking its toll on her. With trembling hands, she popped open the drum magazine of the gun and pried out the empty slug casings. She still had a few shots left in the thing. The whole gun looked like a grenade launcher, but sleeker, and with a shotgun’s bulk. The drum was similar to that of a revolver, making it hard to load on the fly.
Which she was trying to do right now. She had no clue when the fister would show up again, but she wasn’t about to be caught with her pants down when it did. Leaving the two remaining slugs inside, the filled the other six slots with shells. Much better for indoor/close combat.
Finally, Tommy handed over the flashlight. Carefully keeping the barrel pointed at the broken window and the safety off, she snapped in under the barrel and clicked it on. The harsh beam of light that cut through the semi-darkness of the entry hall was welcome.
Sweeping it around showed what she’d expected from a normal school. Dead ahead were bathrooms, with a closed closet between them. The women’s door was hanging at a slight angle, the upper hinge coming loose. To the left and right of those, corridors ran to the other end of the building. The walls were tiled, a pale grey, and a drinking fountain, old and rusted, stood to her in the corner, next to half-open lockers.
“Get further in.” She rasped. “Find one of the classrooms and try setting barricade. I’ll stay here and hit it when it comes through the window.”
Tommy nodded, pale and clammy. Honestly, Clair didn’t blame him. She was scared as well. She just wasn’t showing it. He took off down the left corridor, beam of his flashlight disappearing around the corner. With a deep breath, Clair switched off her own, plunging the entryway in the faint light coming through the broken window. Steadying herself, she crouched, opened one of the waist-high lockers, set the shotgun barrel on it and waited.
This was the hardest part. Fighting every instinct in her body not to run away. But to actually sit here, and wait for a monster on the off chance her hunch was right. If it came through the window, and this didn’t work, it would be right on top of her.
The minutes ticked by, heralded by the steady march of sweat down her back and her tired arms. She wriggled uncomfortably, her shoulder aching from being pressed into the open edge of the locker. Clair wondered if she’d die here. Here, in some dark schoolhouse, far from home. It was likely. What she was doing was risky, and she knew that risks didn’t always pay off. They mostly failed. You just didn’t hear about those that did.
To be honest, the prospect of dying scared her, more than a little. While she seemed like she didn’t give a f***, outwardly, it was different in truth. She..didn’t know what would happen. Would she go to heaven? Hell? Was there anything at all? She wasn’t a religious person, but once she started thinking about all that, she couldn’t stop. One of her many faults.
Stupid thing to be thinking about. Instead of wondering what would come after she died, she would be better off focusing on not dying at all. She had a plan, and a partially-sound exit strategy. It would have to do.
Finally, the monster followed. The shadows on the threadbare carpet, already dim, faded to nearly nothing as something blocked off what little light seeped through the haze.
Something white peeked through the broken window, then pulled back. Then did it again. With sudden violence, the doorframe bulged inwards as the monster slammed itself into the open window, forcing it’s way through! Clair didn’t wait for it to make it. As soon as it was halfway through, she sent a hundred small, metal balls hurtling at it faster than the speed of sound.
The following kick to her shoulder and the boom that echoed off the walls made her glad for those earplugs. What made her even gladder was the hundred holes the shell had torn through the monster. So it had no durability after all. She didn’t wait for it to recover. Another blast went right into it’s mass, then another. For a moment, the fists started to unclench.
Clair hauled herself upright in the space of a second. What she was about to do was stupid, risky, and would get her killed if she took the time to think about it and hesitate. So she didn’t.
Boots pounded, she ran straight at the monster, right into its target area. It was stuck in the window, fists spasming as it tried to deal with suddenly acquiring dozens on dozens of new holes. Cope with them, it did not. The shotgun, heavy in her hands, was pulled up again. Only this time, she wasn’t aiming at the fists.
The next blast went directly into the ring holding it all together. It cracked, and Clair got the f*** out of there. Behind her, an agonizing screech of metal being torn apart could be heard. A fist flew past her and struck the tiled wall in front of her, cracking it and sending fragments everywhere. Another one hit the ceiling somewhere behind her, sending down a faint rain of dust. More and more started flying, striking at random as Clair fumbled with the flashlight.
She got it on and raced into the corridor she’d sent Tommy down just as all hell broke loose. Judging by the thuds, crashes and shaking behind her, the monster wasn’t going quietly.
Surprisingly, he’d actually done as she told him to. Pushed a bunch of desks right to the door of the first classroom. Not an ideal thing, by any standards, but it would have to do. Clair ducked inside, slammed the door and helped Tommy wedge a chair under the doorknob. With the flashlights illuminating the dark classroom, they flipped the heavy teacher’s desk for another barricade, then crouched behind it and waited.
The sounds of the fister thrashing continued for several moments, ended by one large rumble. Then, unexpectedly, a notification popped up, telling her that she’d advanced to level three. No new Skills, just a level-up.
Standing up, she grasped Tommy and pulled him up as well.
“C’mon, it’s fine for now.”
He shook himself loose, eyes darting around nervously, flashlight beam twitching at every dark corner. His voice was hoarse when he replied.
“You hit your head or something? Cuz I’m sure there was this huge armored bull thing out there too. We gamers call them minotaurs. I’m pretty sure it was after us.”
Clair carefully eased out the chair from under the door, then opened it a crack and peeked out, flashlight flicking around the dark hallway. Everything in here smelled dusty. Hell, the air was dusty. School had been out for some time, then.
“It’s not chasing us.”
“And you’re sure of that why?”
She leaned further out, checking both sides on the hallway. Aside from the creepy vibe she was getting from this place, nothing moved. All clear.
“The pop-up.”
“What about it?” He snapped back. Sounded irritated.
“You don’t get them in active combat. Means it didn’t follow us. Either it got lost, has better things to do, or it’s prowling around out there.”
“Oh.” He mumbled.
Letting herself out, Clair pried the flashlight off the shotgun, wriggling it a bit harder than necessary. With that done, she flicked open the screen, brought herself a strap for bargain bin prices, and slung the damn thing over her shoulder. Damn if she wasn’t tired of carrying the bloody thing already. Stopping herself for a second, she slapped herself mentally, then popped it open and reloaded it.
As she did that, Tommy exited behind her. He still didn’t have a weapon to defend himself. She told him as much.
“For f***’s sake, Tommy, buy a gun already. All that hoarding isn’t going to mean jack s*** if you die.”
He seemed sullen, but finally did just that. It took another ten minutes for her to give him a crash course of aiming and shooting.
“Squeeze the trigger. Don’t jerk it.”
Now if only he could tell the difference between the safety button and the one that dropped the magazine for reloading..
“So, what can you tell me about that thing?” She asked. Didn’t know if she’d get anything useful, but he’d been a gamer, big fantasy fan, if she remembered right. Might be something in there that actually helped, for once.
“The fist thingy? No clue. Never seen it before, obviously.
Her eyeroll threatened to break the roof with sheer sarcasm. “No, Captain Clueless, the minotaur. The only thing I know is the name, and that was because I saw it on some dollar trash erotica book your mom read. Fill me in.”
He was quiet for a minute, then shrugged.
“It’s different, depending on where you look. In Greek mythology there was only one Minotaur, THE Minotaur, but fantasy worlds treat them as an entire race. They’re big, strong, and pretty tough, usually. Not the brightest, though. More brutish than anything, really. Brawn and no brains.”
He rattled off some more details as they cautiously approached the entry hall. Flashlight up, Clair peeked in. It was a goddamn mess out there. The water fountain was smashed and leaking, tiling was shattered, the row of lockers was decimated into hanging scraps of metal and the storage room’s door was completely caved in.
“Damn. That thing went out hard.”
Weaving her way through the destruction, Clair peeked out the window. Why had someone thought it would be a great idea to make this literally the only window in this whole place? And design the hallways like they were, instead of a single hallway down the middle? Rural architecture.
The day was going fast, that much was obvious. It was getting darker, the yellow-red haze fading to a dark orange. Looks like they were spending the night in here, then. They needed a plan. She stated as much.
“Okay, sure, fine. The word ‘plan’ is well and good. Now what?”
“First order of business. We need to repair the car. It’s our only means of getting to the City, alive. We both know buying a new one is way too expensive, and unless we want to spend the next week walking through a monster-infested desert, we kinda need it.”
“So..Lemme guess, strip and sell everything here?”
“You’re learning.” She said approvingly. “It’s abandoned, doesn’t belong to anyone, and nobody’s going to miss it. Hopefully. If they do, well, we needed it more than they did. Now, chop chop, get to it.”
“Alright.”
She took the right hall, and he went back the way the had come, pausing only to vanish the remains of the water fountain before moving along. She shrugged, did that to both the bathroom doors and headed down the hall.
Okay. Four doors. Sports, Detention, Teacher’s Lounge and Science, according to the marker on the doors. The Sports room had a logo announcing the Amity Bears spray-painted onto the wall right across from the door. Or that’s what it should have been. Instead, it said: Amity Bares.
Har har. Fun-ee.
Deciding to go where the money was, she tried the Teacher’s Lounge. Locked. Selling the door fixed that problem. The rest was what she expected. Dusty Leather couch, unplugged coffee maker, bunch of coffee mugs, some empty beer cans in the back closet. And a bra. Bright red, D cup.
.. Didn’t take a genius to see something had been going on here.
She stripped the entire room bare, leaving only the walls behind by the time she left. Got a decent amount of Krolls out of it. So, it was worth it.
Sports was next. Time to see what the Amity Bares had been all about. She stepped in, scanning the room with her flashlight. Lockers to the right, blackboard and chairs straight ahead, facing in away from her, and trophy case to her left.
Shining the flashlight at the blackboard, revealed fading soccer plays drawn everywhere, and, much more recently, another message.
“For a good time call Jenna at 444-2837. Wild or your money back.”
Clair narrowed her eyes at that. For some reason, that reminded her of a similar thing back when she’d played sports in high school. Bringing up her screen, she tapped on one of the first things she’d brought and never used. A cell phone icon.
The number went right to voicemail, and an emotional, clearly angry voice yelled at her.
“I don’t know which of you sick bastards is doing these, but just leave me alone!”
It hung up right after. Yup, same s***.
Shaking her head in disgust, she padded over to the trophy case and peered inside. No less than seven championship trophy’s for the regional soccer league. Most went back fifteen to twenty years, but two were from the past three years. One of them looked like it had been broken and glued back together. The photos underneath showed the same person as captain. Opening the case, she picked it up and read the name.
Jenna. Tall girl. Blonde. Kinda homely, with a big gap-toothed grin and goofy look in her eyes. Well, looks didn’t make one a winner. Or a good person. Maybe she-
Clair whirled suddenly, feeling eyes on her back. She saw nothing. Just the chairs and the lockers, exactly like she’d left them.
Okay, she was not freaking out here.
Just, the sensation of being watched had been so powerful that the hairs on her neck had all but snapped to attention. She went over the room again, just in case. Nothing out of place. No chairs sitting at a different angle, no new scrawls on the blackboard. Shaking her head, she turned back to the trophy case.
She suddenly felt guilty about this. Whether or not some alien thingy called it stealing or not, it still was. One would think that she’d be fine with it, but really, she wasn’t. It was one thing to steal from a faceless government, another to sell a person’s hard work and effort. She would know. All the hours, the sweat and tears poured into winning some brass plaque still meant a lot to a person.
Dropping her head, she backed away and closed the case. Couldn’t do it. These belonged to someone. someone who had worked far too hard to win them. Maybe she’d be back for them, if she was still alive. Either way, it just felt..wrong.
Ignoring the case, she scooped up the chairs and blackboard instead. The lockers too, although they were empty. Got a decent price for it all. All throughout, the feeling of being watched was still there. Finally, when she couldn’t take it anymore, she left and closed the door behind her.
The feeling vanished.
She cleared the Detention and Science rooms in short order, leaving each a bare white room, selling everything but the walls themselves. She found a six-pack of Lucky, one can missing, locked in the Science teacher’s desk. Huh.
Checking on Tommy, she found him hard at work sweeping through the other corridor, albeit slower than her. Time to check out the back hall. Her flashlight cutting through the darkness, she crept along, trying not to make any sound. Why, she didn’t know. Seemed kinda dumb, even. If there were any monsters here, they’d have heard them long ago.
The only door in the pitch-black hallway led to the principal’s office, and helpfully said so on the window. Clair just shrugged to herself. More Krolls. She wasn’t picky when it came to the administration. The door was open, so she stepped through, resolving to sell it on the way out.
There was a secretary’s desk right inside, facing the door from her right side. Squat and dusty, with an on-desk calendar that hadn’t been flipped in months, Post-it notes everywhere. A wilted shrub hung from the ceiling in the back, browning leaves swaying limply to some invisible breeze.
The entire room spoke of someone absent-minded, forgetful or just careless. Not what she’d chose for a secretary, to be honest.
The picture on the desk made the choice clear. Busty blonde with a ditzy smile. Huh. She flipped through some of the notes on the desk, illuminating the notes with her flashlight, squinting at the slanted writing. Meeting reminders, budget reminders, coffee dates and even a restaurant reservation.
One caught her eye. A note the bottom was double underlined with red ink. Picking it up, she squinted at it.
“Remind Principal Larhen to change password. Robby Tagert had been sneaking in and changing his grades again.”
Well, look at that. Someone putting in more effort trying to appear smart than just putting in work and being smart.
A search of the desk revealed more of the same. A hidden key that she tucked away, some notes complaining about this Robby kid, some frustrated scribblings about how his father wasn’t doing anything to help with the boy. From what Clair was seeing, this was the local troublemaker. She stuffed some of the notes into one of the vest’s many pockets. She had a niggling in the back of her mind that wasn’t going away. Something she’d seen in the Wiki..
The desk went, along with the plant, an old painting done by a local artist, showing Amity’s main street. Once it was done, and her flashlight found only bare walls, she moved on the office itself.
Big, sprawling desk, with a coating of dust that made her cough when she disturbed it. Even in here there weren’t any windows. At this point, the stifling heat was getting to her. Was this guy a masochist or something? He didn’t even have a f****** air conditioner. This whole brick building must have been a goddamn oven in summer.
There was an old PC, a relic from the early 2000’s. It was black, and it wasn’t getting turned on anytime soon. A portrait on the wall showed a stern, flinty man, stick-thin and looking as hard as steel. His eyes just dared her to step out of line, and his mouth seemed to be pressed shut instead of smiling, with a vein standing out in his forehead. She was willing to bet the students thought he was a right jolly good fellow.
His office revealed little about the man. Everything was neat and orderly. And cleared out for the summer. Still, what sort of man could sit here and bake all year long? Not having a window in this brick over was crazy.
His desk was empty. Completely bare, in fact. The PC had been plugged out from the wall and it’s cord wrapped up with duct tape. Her flashlight followed the wall as she fumbled through the darkness, finally landing on a filing cabinet. Locked, of course.
Dipping one hand into a side pocket, she wriggled out the key, then jostled it into the lock. It was old and rusty, but she got it open. Pulling it out revealed files. Numbered by date and year, of course. Going through a few drawers, she finally found the Targen one. Heaving it out, she found it was remarkably thick. Plopping it on the principal’s desk, she eased away the chair and bent over it, going through the pages by beamlight.
He was neat and efficient, she would give him that. His writing was thick, like the pen had been pressed down hard. Slanted to the left, too. Didn’t see that often. Going through Robby’s file made it clear the boy had been a troublemaker from the very first day. It was small stuff at first, harmless pranks. Nothing worth, say, a suspension.
He’d been suspended on his third offense, and that’s where the trouble started. His father owned half of Amity, from the gas station to the general store. Piecing together increasingly angrier notes and letters, she formed a picture. The older Tagert had demanded the principal keep Robby in school, or he would close all the stores to him. Gas station, general store, clothing store, everything.
Faced with that, the principal had no choice but to knuckle under and accept. When Robby came back, he suddenly found that he could do anything he wanted with no repercussions. The pranks got worse from there. Setting basketballs on fire, puncturing soccer balls, mixing lab equipment and chemicals. The list marched on and on.
The final straw came when he broke the soccer team’s trophy when they came back from winning the regional championships. Jenna Neils had snapped at him and kicked his lights out. He spent half a week in the City hospital. When he came back and found that she wasn’texpelled, the pranks went from boyish to plain cruel. Posting her pic and number on Tinder, prank calling her in the middle of the night to tell Jenna her parents, who worked in the City, had been killed and so on.
By the time the school year was out, the principal had filed several complaints with law enforcement, but they never got anywhere.
Then, of course, the System came along and everything went to hell in a handbasket. But not before Jenna Neils died under suspicious circumstances. The investigation into that had barely revved itself to a start when Status screens and monster came along. To no one’s surprise, the notes stopped there. Huh, enlightening, but didn’t give her all the answers she wanted.
She was halfway through selling the contents of the office when Tommy’s high-pitched shriek reached her ears. She dropped everything (not that she was holding anything anyway) and took off running, fumbling with the shotgun. Trying to attach the flashlight on the run and open a door at the same time proved to be a difficult task. So, Clair decided to try multitasking. Her hands worked on the gun, and her shoulder went for the door.
She ran into it and abruptly stopped. Solid wood versus charging, distracted human? No contest. The only point in her favor was that she hadn’t been going fast enough to hurt herself. Growling in frustration, she finally got the damned flashlight onto the barrel, then yanked the door open, ignoring her throbbing shoulder.
Her breath was in her throat and her heart was pounding as she dashed around the corner, aiming at the classroom dead ahead. How did she know he was in there? It was the only one that still had a door. Said door was standing open, and stomping sounds were coming from inside. She barged in, shotgun held in tired arms.
What greeted her was a sight she’d not soon forget. Tommy with his back to the wall, arms spread and palms flattened. And there, partially illuminated by a fallen flashlight, the minotaur.
Huge. Hulking. Smelling of sweat and wet fur.
Drawing on the blackboard.
