The smoke was increasing, thickening, and Vanessa started to see flames.
The hooded figure had removed both gloves now. Its spidery wooden fingers flexed with sounds like groaning floorboards. Under its hood glowed a green the color of vintage computer text. The creature came slowly, taking its time, knowing it had time. Dead leaves crackled and twigs snapped under its heavy footfalls.
The earthy stink of burning leaves sent Vanessa into a woozy panic. They had to dampen that fire sooner rather than later, but if they didn't deal with their assailant first, it could prove a fatal distraction. She fished back into her pocket for the media player.
Kayson threw stone after stone. Some bounced off the creature's cloaked torso, slowing its advance but not stopping it. None of the projectiles managed to strike its head. It was toying with them, letting them know it could take anything they threw at it.
It slashed out with its splintered claws. The blow ripped three gashes in Kayson's shirt and scraped red lines into his upper abdomen. He yelped out a curse and stumbled. He lost his footing, and his butt struck the ground.
Vanessa freed the music player and woke up the screen. The creature scrambled over Kayson's prone form and lunged for her. She sidestepped the leaping attack and pressed PLAY. The hooded figure's shoulder grazed her, and she fell to the side. She began to roll down toward the force field.
She flailed for purchase. In the struggle, the player slipped from her hands and tumbled into a tangle of underbrush. Aches alighted on her body on the way down. She drew closer to the force field every split second. An invisible, indifferent death awaited her. The swish of leaves and sticks made an uncaring countdown.
She skidded to a stop a matter of breathless inches from the force field but amid the growing circle of flames. Out of the frying pan, into the literal fire.
__________________________________________
Hannah watched as Werth smashed the hooded figure over and over with the pole. She listened as the muted thumps gave way to wet cracks. A scent like sewage and melted plastic drifted from the body as it crumpled, still hanging by its wrist in the handcuffs. Something metallic and acidic burned the back of her throat. She'd picked up her pole to join in the bashing but could only hold it limply. Self-defense was one thing. Murder was something else entirely, even though she felt sure this creature wasn't human.
When Werth was spent, he tossed the pole away and collapsed cross-legged. Still, he never took his eyes off the thing. He probably shared Hannah's suspicions on the creature's nature.
The fluid that seeped and spread from beneath the lumpy remains was dark green, nearly black. It reminded her of liquefied garbage bags. As the body burbled and squelched like boiling gruel, more of the fluid spread and the lumps under the cloak deflated.
"Is that fucking thing melting?" Werth asked.
The rest of the body broke from the bound wrist with a watery snap and left the hand hanging in the cuff.
"I think so." She barely whispered her response. It was a rhetorical question anyway.
With the process complete, only the skeletal frame was left.
Something impossible happened next, as if the word impossible had any meaning in this place. The cloak and the bones flashed white the way signals went bad on old TVs. The hanging wrist also turned to static. All the remaining parts flickered in and out with a hushed sizzle.
Then, they were gone.
Before Hannah or Werth could ask each other what the hell happened, that nightmare music began again.
______________________________________
Kayson slid down the embankment, bending his knees and putting his arms out for balance. Last thing he needed was to slide into that force field. Still, he had to get Vanessa away from that fire. Behind him, the hooded figure stood frozen. The music now blaring through the air had stilled it like before. He'd always liked the smell of burning leaves, especially oak and cedar, but he'd give anything not to smell it now.
Vanessa was standing by the time he reached her. He peeled off his ripped shirt. His wounds flared when the fabric brushed against them. He dropped his shirt atop the small blaze and stomped on it. It wasn't the only fire, though, and he had to act fast. Vanessa offered her feet, stomping down small pockets of flames near her. The smoke blackened as the small fires choked.
Vanessa swiped the music player from the ground. She went to press the button.
"Don't," Kayson said.
"Why not?" she asked.
He nodded toward the downed creature. "Don't wanna wake him."
"But the others," she said. "The rats …"
"I know, but if that fucker wakes up, he's not gonna let us back up this little hill."
The fires were out now, but Kayson's shirt was a blackened mess. He left it smoking on the ground.
Vanessa pointed to the scratches on his chest. "You gonna be okay?"
He looked down at the wounds. They weren't bleeding much, but they hurt like a bitch.
"Man, I hope so," he said.
She marched up the embankment past him. "Let's hurry. I want to shut that music off."
He followed her but paused when she stopped beside the hooded creature.
"What are you doing?"
She pocketed the music player. The singer carried on in his alien language. Kayson desperately wanted it to stop, and not just because he was worried about rats. The song had come to represent this day, and he hoped when he got out of here, he never had to hear it again.
"Give me a hand?" she asked and bent to grab the hooded figure's legs.
Reading her mind, he took the figure under its armpits. "On three?"
"On three. Let's try to get him to the force field."
"Now you're talking."
"One," Vanessa said.
The skin beneath the cloak began to ripple and tense.
"Shit, this guy's waking up!"
"Two."
The gnarled fingers splayed out with a series of crackles. Reached for Kayson's face.
"Gahhh, three!" he yelled.
They tossed the creature into the still-smoky air below. It struck the force field and shrieked. More sparks flickered where it hit. It stuck to the barrier for several seconds, then fell like a mosquito from a bug zapper.
"I hope that will keep him down," she said.
"Yeah."
"And I hope the fire doesn't start back up."
"I ain't about to go down and check."
"Yeah, me neither." She took out the media player. "Well, here goes nothing."
When the music cut, Kayson heard his brother screaming.
__________________________________
The rats, perhaps tired of getting teased by the dinner bell, came faster and more aggressively this time. Their black furry bodies scurried from beneath the Tilt-A-Whirl. They came from other crevices and corners too, but the ones from under the Tilt-A-Whirl were closest. They scampered over the sagging fence, through the leafy tendrils that had felled it. Their dirty nails scraped the chain links.
Werth saw them, dozens of red eyes zeroed in on him like lasers, and he laughed. He sat there cross-legged and laughed his ass off.
What the fuck else could he do?
Hannah was yelling something. Probably telling him to get up and run away.
He barely heard her. The music seemed much louder now. It drowned her out, rendered her unintelligible. He watched them come, dared them to come. He didn't know what he'd do when they did, and he didn't give a fuck.
The glitching of the hooded man was what broke him. For him, smashing that computer-faced fuck should've been the end of it, some ultimate victory. Bad days just didn't keep on going after he knocked someone straight so decisively. Surely killing someone who intended to kill him should've been the ultimate release. Ugly, sure, but it should've been the end of this: a release valve, not just for his internal pressure, but for whatever was keeping him and the others confined here.
And yet, here were these fucking rats again.
Here was that God-awful song playing again through the loudspeakers.
He laughed because what the fuck else could he do?
Hannah had stopped yelling at him. Maybe she'd run away, maybe she hadn't. He couldn't bring himself to look her way. He could only look at the oncoming ravenous rodents. They were a few feet from him now. He could see into their mouths, black gums and bubbling rabid saliva.
He laughed as he crawled for the pole. Laughed as he stood and used the pole to smash one rat, the fattest one he could see, into a mangled pile of blood-matted fur and intestinal loops. Laughed as other rats began to climb his pants legs. Wet sobs broke his laughter as their claws and teeth found purchase in the meat of his calves and thighs.
He hurled the pole into a gathered group of them. Grabbed the one highest on his leg. Bit a hunk out of its side. It had a gamey taste. A gristly and gritty texture. Its blood was bitter on his tongue. Grotesquely warm as it drooled down his chin.
He fell backwards into a sea of them, cackling again.
He laughed until he screamed. He kept screaming even after the music died.
The rats left him bleeding on the pavement from too many wounds.