Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.
AN: Yay! Chapter Seven! And it's out so quickly. Anyway, thank you as always to my loyal reviewers. I'm surprised that my little fic has become so popular, so thanks again, you're what makes writing this so much fun, so let's see some more reviews, huh!
Additional AN: Missie! Thank you so much for reviewing. (I know this is a little late, you reviewed like a long time ago.) Anyway, you're one of my favorite fanfic writers and you don't know how much it means to me that you enjoyed my little horror fic. ^ - ^ ::insert shit-eating grin here::
"The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse."
-Edmund Burke, speech, House of Commons, 7 Feb 1771
"Guys..... I gotta stop."
Heero and Wufei swung around at Duo's whisper, Sally and Relena still supporting Hilde. The braid one in question was half-knelt on the floor, breathing shallowly, sweat running in rivulets down his face. His countenance was deathly pale and his arms were wrapped about himself, his body shivering softly.
"H-Heero, I... I need....." Duo sputtered before being racked by a swarm of dry coughs. Spittle flew from cracked lips, and then Duo dragged himself painfully across the floor, to the corner, where he preceded to empty his lunch out onto the floor. //Too soon, it's too soon for this shit to be happening... what the fuck....//
Duo flopped himself on the dirty wooden floor of the upstairs waiting room, next to the puddle of sick near the couch. He stared up at his friends with watery blood-shot eyes, and the wheels in Hilde's head began to turn.
"You were doing dope again, weren't you!" she snapped, a statement rather than a question, "You never fucking quit, did you!"
Duo could only whimper pitifully at that, confirming her suspicions. Relena looked thoughtfully over at Heero, who didn't seem too well off himself, already sweating and shivering and looking about two steps away from crawling in a hole somewhere to upchuck in peace. She scowled.
Heero rubbed his throbbing forehead, the world spinning away for a moment as he threw himself down next to Duo. He was the perfect soldier, for Chrissake, why was this happening to him? He had trouble concentrating, and with a glance over at Duo he realized what was wrong.
//We got some bad shit.//
Trowa wasn't feeling too well. In fact, he felt like shit.
He had calmed down quite significantly after the bug-thing attacked, after he realized that it was dead and wasn't going to get back up. And now he felt like a dumb ass, because there were only three bullets left in the gun. He and Quatre had decided to head west, climbing over barricades and watching for the undead, knowing that if one of them got the drop on them, they wouldn't be making it to the police station.
They had only been jogging through the city for about ten minutes when he began to feel a little weird.
First it was just an itch, on his right forearm, and Trowa figured that a mosquito had bitten him at some point; no big deal. However, it was starting to get distracting, and seemed to be spreading. His skin felt hot and inflamed, like there were bug bites all over, each one separate and screaming for a scratch. His head was pounding, making concentrating a difficult thing, the world distorting with each step. Suddenly, there was Quatre's face, a pale oval with blue orbs and blonde hair, blurry and beautiful at the same time, floating in the squirming darkness as through he were in a dream. Quatre opened his black hole of a mouth, and said something, but Trowa couldn't hear over the buzzing-
-and suddenly, Quatre touched him, his pale hand smooth and cool over his forehead, soothing the itchy skin there, just like a real angel, healing everything.
"Trowa....Trowa are you okay? You've got a fever..." his angel murmured, a beautiful siren's voice in his confusion.
"Hot," he replied.
"Itchy," he replied.
Relena had found a blanket in a chest that was beside the door, she wrapped Heero in it, who shared with Duo, both of them shivering and shaking and trying not to heave again. Hilde sat on the couch, her hands splayed on her stomach, refusing to look at Duo. Sally sat next to her, one arm wrapped around her. Wufei stood across the room, arms crossed, a scowl on his face.
"So what do we---" Relena started, but was cut short by a woman's blood-curdling screaming. It was close, she was close, it had to have been just down the hall--
Hesitating for a second, Wufei reached for the doorknob, twisting it slowly, opening the door- only to shut it again as smoke began to waft into the room. //The helicopter.....//
It wasn't that bad, all things considering. He had caught a glimpse of the fire, or at least the reflection of it as it as the light bounced off the far wall where the hall way bent right. The smell of cooking meat drifted into the room, hinting that they had been no survivors.
Rummaging through the box where she had gotten Duo and Heero's blanket, Relena pulled out a fire extinguisher, handing it to Wufei who was already tucking his gun into his belt. He grabbed the canister of CO2, pulling his shirt up over his nose, squaring his shoulders before throwing the door open and leaping into the hallway, holding up the extinguisher, ready to beat the hell out of anything that moved--
-and stood up, staring at the burning remains of /something/, a mutated animal-thing, like the one Duo blew apart downstairs. //He called it "licker," because of its tongue....// Wufei violently shrugged the thought off, knowing he didn't have much time. The thick smoke was still pouring out of the helicopter, the pilot's body now nothing more than a glob of stringy flesh melted to the seat, pouring down like grease. Wufei wrinkled his nose, the haze stinging his eyes. He jerked the metal pin free, aiming the nozzle. The thick foamy liquid spewed out, liberally coating the blaze. It wasn't as bad as he'd first thought; the blaze was out in minutes, white liquid CO2 covering everything.
There was a door at the end of the smoking corridor, but judging from the hissing and scratching sounds coming from within, he didn't want to go in there. //Door number two, then?// The second door was in the middle of the hallway, the nose of the 'copter sticking through the right side of the door. There was still enough room for semi-easy access, however, and with a well-placed kick-
-/cra-ack/--
--the door splintered, raining hot slivers over Wufei's ankle. There was a narrow corridor smothered with a thin layer of haze, not looking particularly friendly, but at least nothing had jumped out for him.....
Leaving the empty CO2 canister in the hallway, Wufei walked back to the others, intent on getting back up. He had no intention of walking through the little house of horrors on his own. It looked like Duo and Heero weren't going to be getting up anytime soon, and Sally was adamant about staying by Hilde's side.
Wufei looked at Relena, who pushed a lock of blonde hair out of her plain face, her blue eyes blinking slowly. She'd never fired a gun, or handled one, but after a five minute tutorial from Wufei, she had figured out the basics. She wasn't a particularly fast re-loader, but she handled the gun pretty well, which was the best they could get.
Glancing back at Heero once more, Relena followed Wufei into the smoky haze of the corridor.
Quatre grasped the VP70 tighter, the gun sliding slightly in his damp grip. Trowa stumbled along behind him, without his natural grace or stealth. Internal alarms went off in Quatre's mind; a clumsy Trowa meant that something was very, /very/ wrong. He was still running a fever, and had said 'hot' twice more, unable to articulate anything beyond that.
//Oh, Trowa, my Trowa. What's happening to you?//
Quatre tried to shake the thought off, glancing behind him. Trowa had slowed down considerably, stumbling alongside a brick building, his head slightly hung. It was obvious that he wouldn't be able to keep up the pace for long. Quatre took a quick survey of his surroundings, and realized that they were near a church. He gently guided his love towards it, suppressing the shock when he felt Trowa's hot skin, realized just how clammy he was-
-What /was/ happening to Trowa?
Trowa stumbled slightly, the pain in his head and the itch dying away. Not completely, it felt as though his itches had--- /connected/ somehow, all furiously squirming against each other, scratching themselves. It was weird, but not all that unpleasant. Quatre said something to him, he didn't understand but he liked how Quatre said it, slow and soft and soothing.
Quatre touched his arm, steering him somewhere, his touch gentle and cool.
Trowa tried to say something, wondering why Quatre looked so strange and smelled so good.
Wufei slowly twisted the knob, his gun half raised, ready to blow apart anything that decided to jump him. Relena was ready behind him, her gun raised as she clicked off the safety. She nibbled slightly at her bottom lip, understanding that she had to remain cool and collected, knowing full well what would be her fate if she didn't. Wufei looked at her, and she nodded, ready for anything-
-except what she saw when Wufei finally swung the door open.
Wufei crossed over the threshold, Relena following quietly, mildly shocked at the lavishness of the large office. Mahogany bookshelves and matching tables, surrounding a small sitting area of sorts which was made of a low table and padded leather chairs sitting atop an obviously expensive oriental rug. The extravagance was almost ludicrous. Delicate vases and framed photos were situated throughout the large office, a low hanging chandelier casting a mellow light over it all, creating a dream-like quality. A massive assemble of stuffed animal heads and dead birds dominated the far wall, all congregated around a massive desk in the far corner-
-//oh, my God//--
Laying upon the desk was a beautiful young girl in a short pink skirt and matching blouse, her blonde tresses framing her tiny angelic face, her guts ripped to shreds, blood still oozing slowly from her mid-section.
Relena stepped in front of Wufei, rushing over to the girl, to see if she could help-
-when the high-backed chair swung around, and a man with a meticulously shaped white beard pointed a gun at her head. There was a wild looked to his quick, shifting eyes, a look that told her no was home. //Oh boy.//
"Who are you?" the man whispered quickly, his voice deep and authoritative, with a rich quality that was almost soothing, but turned sinister with a touch of what could only be described as insanity. He continued on however, not waiting for an answer. "No, don't tell me, you'll end up just like all the others......"
He stared down at the dead girl, some unnamed emotion seeping into his eyes. "That's Noveta's granddaughter. I was told to look after her, but I failed, miserably. Just look at her, she was a true beauty. Skin nothing short of perfection. But it will soon putrefy, and within the hour, she'll become another one of those things. Just like all the others."
Relena's internal alarms were doing some serious jangling as she took a step back from the man. //Oh boy, oh boy. He's not just crazy, he's sick.// The way he stared at the dead girl was giving her some serious heebie-jeebies, his eyes crawling over her soft flesh and young features. Couldn't have been much younger than herself.....
"There must be someway to stop it...." Relena whispered, trying her best to be helpful. //We wandered into this freak show for the last act, he was here for the beginning, is it any wonder he's having trouble with reality?//
"In a manner of speaking. Either by putting a bullet in he brain, or decapitating her completely."
The man twisted his chair to stare up at the stuffed animals, the birds with their ratty moth-eaten wings stared down at the girl with glass eyes, gazing down as if she was some kind of a virgin sacrifice.....
"And to think, taxidermy used to be my hobby. But, no longer....."
Relena took another step back. /Taxidermy?/ What the /hell/ did that have to do with the dead human on his desk?
"Please, I'd really like to be alone now," the man said, sagging his chair, his breath deepening, retreating back to whatever private world he'd been in before she and Wufei had intruded.
Wufei had been standing next to her, a scowl on his handsome features. "Dermail," he growled, using the barrel of his gun to poke at him. Dermail didn't so much as twitch, and they were back to square one.
A scratching noise, like the click of tiny shoes, off to the left.
Wufei spun around, staring at a door he hadn't noticed before. It was off to the right of the door, inconspicious and tucked away in the corner. He glanced at Relena for conformation, and the two of them left Duke Dermail to his private musings, determined to see what was behind door number two.