SkyeOfStars
Eventually we reached a sorta crossroads. By then, me 'n Hurk were panting a little. God this place was huge. But the signs told the whole story, alright. We were close. A map displayed on the wall nearby showed our progress. Straight ahead, next left, and bam, there we were.
Hurk pulled a small silver flask from inside his jacket, uncapped it and took a swig, offering it to me right after.
"Drink? Whiskey."
Ah how could I resist. I took the flask and, not wanting to make the poor guy taste death the next time he drank from it, poured a shot into my mouth instead of drinking directly from it. The liquor was smooth, silky down my throat, and it lit a nice fire in me that drove away the growing cold.
"Thanks."
"No problems, Andy. We good to go?"
"We're golden. Let's roll, we're almost there."
A few minutes later and we were there. The double doors with a sign sayin' "Main Control Room" above it were right ahead of us.
Jackpot.
"Made it. Finally."
"Jeez, yeah. Took long enough. C'mon, let's get inside and fire this puppy up."
I strode forward and swung open the double doors.
"...shit."
Inside, carnage. Wires strewn everywhere, consoles smashed into pieces, broken glass and metal all over the place. It would be a damn miracle if there was even one working console, let alone enough to turn this whole place back on.
And another thing. We weren't alone. There were bodies. Bodies that moved.
Bodies that...weren't bodies.
From behind me, I could almost hear Hurk's jaw hitting the floor. Figuratively, not literally.
"What the flying fuck are those things?"
Well for starters they looked like spiders. Gross, deformed spiders. In the dim orange light I couldn't see much detail, but I could swear that each of their eight feet were...hands? Fuckin' creepy crawlies, there were like, eight or nine of 'em in the whole room, on the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Like they was asleep.
Jesus Christ what were these things?!
"Hurk."
"Yeah Andy?"
"These things gotta die."
"Yeah they do."
"Kill 'em."
"No arguments from me there."
He leveled his rifle at one of the spider things and opened fire.
There was a godawful screech as the bullets tore into the thing. Blood and guts splattered out of it as it spasmed underneath his fire. Then he stopped to reload and the whole thing just sorta splattered onto the floor, fell right apart. The stench of death instantly filled the air and Hurk gagged. I struggled not to.
These things were made of corpses.
What. The. Fuck.
The noise had apparently woken the rest of its friends, and as Hurk swiveled his rifle to down another one, they began to swarm and charge.
One of the freaky buggers came right for my face, but I stopped it with a helping of buckshot. I pumped my shotgun as another one came in from my left, crawling over the ceiling with its feet-hands. I struggled to raise my gun in time and squeezed the trigger just as it leaped, splattering the floor with its guts as it flopped in a head in front of me.
Hurk, now beside me, reloaded his rifle and took aim at the main bulk of 'em and opened fire. Some of 'em dodged the spray, but two of the things took the full brunt and fell apart at the seams, screechin' 'n dyin' as he tore 'em up.
Five left.
I heard him yell out and spun around to see one of the nasty fuckers right on top of him, trying to claw his face out with a mouth that wasn't a mouth but an assortment of hands that ended in bony fingers. He was yellin' 'n screamin', trying to get the thing off of his chest.
Just then another one of the things charged me, but I had to get to Hurk. I swiveled round and pumped it full of buckshot, wasting no time to go get Hurk right after.
I ran over and flipped my shotgun round, grabbing it by the barrel. Didn't matter that it was still hot from my last shot, cause I only held it for a second to club the nasty thing over the head. It screeched and went slightly limp, so I kicked it away, switched my gun back around, pumped the slide once and then pumped it full of buckshot.
"Behind you!"
Gunfire filled the air and another pile of what used to be a corpse spider thing skidded to a stop at my feet. Hurk, panting and gasping for air, was sitting up, rifle pointed in that general direction. I helped him to his feet and shoved my shotgun in his chest.
"Still loaded. Thank me later."
He took the gun, pumped the slide and immediately went to work. The last two spider things splattered and died as he filled 'em full of twelve gauge buckshot. Panting, he racked the slide and handed the gun back to me.
"Empty. Thanks."
"Don't sweat it."
Corpses were all over the floor, some whole, most in pieces. There was blood all over the place too, made walkin' real slick and slippery, but we had to, to get to the consoles. Leave the cleanin' up for the civil service, they'd get the job done better than we could. Right now, power was our concern, not clean up.
We were still pretty damn shaken, though. Wasn't every day that you fought spiders made of dead bodies sewn together then filled with enough red juice to make 'em explode. Jesus, stuff a' nightmares, right there. Probably sure Hurk would be havin' some a' those when he got home after all this.
For now, we had to get power.
"Alright Hurk, start from over there, try to find a workin' console. Then just press buttons until you get a reaction, alright? Maybe if we press enough buttons we'll get juice flowin' again."
"Only choice we got, Andy. Let's do it."
He slung his rifle and jogged to the far end of the room while I started nearer where we were. The consoles were trashed, yeah, but I thought right. There were a few still intact or with minor damage. I found one almost immediately and began fiddlin' with it, pressin' all the buttons and pulling a lever or two and turning knobs until I heard a whirr and a clanking and saw my console light up, among several others. I panned my gaze out to where Hurk was and saw all the other consoles begin lighting up, well, all the ones that were workin' anyway. A lotta them were trashed, and sparks were flyin' from some bad connections or open wires.
But we'd done somethin'. And somethin' was better than nothin'.
"Yo, Andy? Get over here, take a look at this."
I turned. Hurk was lookin' at a big ol' board on the wall, looked to be a city map or somethin'. I ambled on over and sure enough, it was a city map. Each neighbourhood and borough had a little bulb on it, but none of 'em were lit.
"What is this, Hurk?"
"I'm no electrical engineer but I think this is a power board, Andy. See the lights? These probably indicate if these areas of the city have power. Like, y'see here? That's Chinatown, right there. Now, if I press this..."
He pushed a button and the light on the Chinatown district lit up. The man grinned as he gestured at the board and looked at me.
"Baboom. Power. I'm bettin' each of the consoles here controls power to a certain district or area. We better find all of the working ones and turn 'em on, what d'you say?"
I grinned back.
"Fuckin' A, Hurk. You're a genius. Let's do it!"
And so we went, scamperin' around the place like hamsters as we looked for workin' consoles. Each one we found was labeled with a different area of the city. Dawnpeak Heights, Redcliff Hills, the old Jewellery District downtown, Southgate Square, Nytestar Canyon, Taintmarsh Park and Vulture Rock, and Lover's Hill. Not exactly the whole city, but when we were done we had a little connect-the-dots of lit bulbs on the power board. Those areas had power.
Finally, progress.
I rejoined Hurk in front of the board and smiled, clapping him on the back as he grinned and pumped a fist in the air.
"Woo!"
"We got it, Hurk my man! Whole city ain't up but we sure as hell helped it along. Fuckin' A, that's the best thing we've done all night!"
"Yeah man! Woo!"
"And soon it'll be the last thing you've done all night. Hands up and turn around, nice 'n slow."
I heard the click of a hammer being thumbed back.
Company? Shit. We'd been too busy celebratin' to notice. I held up my hands and turned around, just like our mystery visitor said. 'Cept, when I saw who he was, my jaw dropped.
"....Kiddo?"