NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Okay, here is the start of another horror Rp of mine. My first post is kinda long, so I'm breaking it up into two posts.

Rpers

Tarlachia
Khiraebanaa
Sidestreamer
Draconis Nightcrawlis
Assington
Tomzilla
Kriegorgrad
Tanara
East Lithuania

Shadows is rated R for Blood, Gore, Language


ic:

Decay

The vulture lifted its head slowly and smelled the air. The bird sat on a dead tree over looking a vast grassland and desert. A warm breeze cut through the dry, hot air, bringing the smell of dead flesh to the creature. It stretched its wings and took off into the air. The dirty animal flew low across the dead yellow grass, which as it flew on grew darker and redder.

The vulture beat its wings harder and spotted a glint in the grass. It swooped down and landed on a hard, hot metal surface. It screeched and stepped off it, staring at it. The metal breastplate had the snarling head of a dragon on the front that covered much of the plate, the gauntlets, helmet, and all other bits of armor had smaller versions of the same symbol.

A large broadsword, a blood caked hand tightly grasping it lay a foot from the owner, the hand severed from the arm. The vulture nibbled on the hand for several minutes before climbing back on top of the corpse, it tilted its head to the sky and gave a shriek, claiming its meal.

Another vulture sat in a nearby tree, surveying the scene below. It turned its ugly head and looked across a vast field of grass and sand. The yellow ground was no longer yellow; it was now completely covered in human corpses. A large river was choked and began to overflow from the buildup of bodies. Many of the bodies were torn to pieces and were covered in blood, few bodies were intact. Horses, mules, camels, and officer’s dogs were lying in the burning remains of the camp, their entrails drying in the sun.

The vulture took off into the air and flew towards another pillar of smoke, all the way there it saw fields of limbs and blood. Another camp, equally destroyed sat two miles away from the first. It landed next to a human head and opened its mouth…


The spoonful of baked beans entered the man’s mouth and as he wolfed down his dinner. He sat on a stool across from his friend next to a fire on the grassland. The sun was almost gone from the sky, painting it in a dazzling array of colors. A 2 ton GMC truck sat nearby. He put down his spoon and took a sip of beer before digging back into his meal.

“So Kevin, what exactly is in that hole?” He said.

Kevin Dunbar looked across the fire to his friend and gave a shrug has he took a bit of his salt pork. “Trace amounts of gold, anything left down there is worth about ten thousand Carlos.”

Carlos Bova put a spoonful of beans into his mouth and chewed before swallowing. “Okay, so we drove around for the past two weeks, found a hole that holds no more than ten thousand dollars worth of gold?”

“Yup, well not exactly. I went down about fifty feet and after an hour, found a shit load of platinum. If the deposits I found are consistent, we are looking at millions Carlos.”

Carlos looked up and smiled. “You think we might get some action?”

“Maybe, maybe not, depends on what the fat cats think. I hope to God we do.”

Carlos finished his dinner and put his plate on the dry earth. He looked across the darkening plain to a collection of huts in a tight circle with a crude fence around it. He watched as a sudden fire appeared in the center of the village.

“What do you think the natives are up to? They have done that every night since we have gotten here.”

“Fuck if I know…I am gonna go for a shit.” Kevin said as he stood. He walked over to the truck and pulled out a roll of toilet paper and a Belgian SAFN-49 and headed off into the dark.

Carlos stood, climbed into the back of the truck, rolled up into his sleeping bag and fell asleep.

When he woke, it was well into the night, the bag next to him was empty. He looked out into the darkness and slipped out of the truck. Picking up his own SAFN-49, he walked over to the fire.

“KEVIN?! Kevin where are you?”

The fire was low; Carlos leaned down, picked up a large piece of wood and tossed it on the fire. The flame suddenly jumped and the man froze as he saw a huge shadow cast by the fire behind him. A cold sweat suddenly appeared on his forehead as he clicked off the safety on his weapon and turned around.

Carlos opened his mouth to scream…

Present

The Cessna Caravan aircraft taxied slowly to the end of the dirt runway and stopped. The pilot turned off the engine as a young man climbed out of the aircraft. He was about twenty-five, wearing a light grey business suit; he was escorted to a beaten up Land Rover.

He climbed in the Rover and it took off down a ruddy dirt road through the thorn bush. The young man held onto the door tightly, his knuckles white as the driver pushed the vehicle at nearly fifty miles per hour. The driver slowed as they exited the small thicket of thorns and the base became visible.

Two Russian made Mi-17 helicopters sat underneath tan colored camouflage netting, providing some cover to the repair crews from the sun that was beating down on them. A small corrugated steel structure sat next to the helipads, giving the men the only real shelter without walking to one of the barracks. The man wiped some sweat off his forehead as they continued to the main operation that sat only a few yards from the crude helipads.

The man looked counted fifteen single story stucco buildings that were in a sorry state. Many had crudely patched holes in the side and some roofs appeared like they would collapse at any second. The only way he was able to recognize the hospital was because there was a slight discoloration on the rusty roof that appeared in the shape of a cross. He also made out the cantina, beer bottles hung on wire from the porch.

He saw people walking to and fro, doing their daily tasks. He counted about forty guards wearing desert camouflage, all carrying Russian AK-74 assault rifles slung over their shoulders. He didn’t think this kind of security was needed, but it wasn’t his place to say.

The Land Rover stopped in front of another stucco building; this one was two stories yet still looked in a sorry state. The man climbed out and walked inside. He headed up a flight of wooden stairs and down the hall past several offices to the one marked Murdoch, Walter.

Murdoch looked up from his desk as the young man entered. He leaned back in his chair, adjusting his dark blue collared shirt. His office was small, file cabinets, maps, charts, and graphs lay on or against the wall; a liquor cabinet sat directly behind his desk next to an old rusty gym locker. “Well do please come in.”

The young man stopped, detecting the snarl in Murdoch’s voice. “Mr. Murdoch…Mr. Lander is wondering why there has been a drop in production. You haven’t…”

“Shut up. Tell Lander we had a little bit of trouble earlier this month.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Man-eater…lion. Negroes across the Matoul say they killed it. Don’t believe the bastards.”

“The Matoul? There is no river here.”

“There was, a long time ago. It is now a dried up river bed that separates us from the niggers. We call their tribe Matoul for convenience.”

“Sir…please do not call the natives..”

“I will call them whatever I damn well please.” Murdoch put down a pen he was holding and looked up at the young man. “You came all this way, flew from the Golden Simatar, out in the middle of no where to ask me about production?”

“Your radio doesn’t work.”

“Nothing works here damn it! We are under funded and we get second rate workers. Here are the reports you want. Now…fuck off!”

Murdoch thrust several thick files into the man’s hand. The young man looked at Murdoch for several seconds before turning and heading out of the building.


“Hey Riley. Looks like the old man has chased off another one.” One of the mechanics working on the Mi-17s said.

Riley looked out from the cockpit of the Mi-17 he was cannibalizing. He was wearing a dark green baseball cap, faded pair of blue jeans and a loose fitting red t-shirt tucked into his pants. An old brown leather belt was at his waist, a walkie-talkie attached to it. Riley shrugged and looked at his watch. “Ten minutes, new record.”

Riley pulled the magneto out of the Mi-17 and climbed out. He handed it to one of the other mechanics to put in the other one. He hated this, he needed parts to get both choppers running; yet he was forced to tear one apart to keep one going. He pulled out the walkie-talkie, talked for several minutes before putting it away.

“One of the drills is fucking up again on level five, I’ll go fix it. Dave, install the magneto and try to warm the engine. If that fails, fuck it till tomorrow.”

The other mechanic nodded and turned back to his work. Riley walked over to the building that served as the mechanics tool shack, walked inside, and came back out with his old mountain bike and a tool kit latched onto the back. He mounted his bike and set out across the base.

He biked through the collections of buildings to the mine entrance. It was nothing to gawk at, a simple large elevator that could hold up to fifty workers took the miners down to whatever of the eight levels they worked on. Riley looked at his watch, 3:12, the miners should be coming up. He parked his bike next to the generator that powered the elevator, pulled out a cigarette, lit it and stared across the mile of grass, sand, stone, and thorn to the native village.

He had been there once, about fifteen mud huts with thatched roofs behind a crude mud fence. Riley remembered some doctor or some other person was over there studying their culture. The Simatarian chuckled, the natives had grown slowly restless the more the LMC workers dug into the earth.

Riley smoked for several minutes as the elevator brought up load after load of miners. He waited till the last group was off, picked up his toolbox and climbed onto the elevator. He pressed the button for level five and went down into the darkness. After a ten minute ride, he climbed off at level five, grabbed a hardhat and a flash light and moved into the tunnel.

Riley approached a large drilling machine ten feet long from the tip of the massive drill to the controls at the back. The vehicle ran on treads, and from the report, the treads would not budge, not matter how much the engine was gunned. Riley set down his toolbox, placed the flashlight next to it, and pried off a part of the machine, showing its guts.

He heard a noise like a rock dropping off down the tunnel. Riley pulled up the flashlight and the beam of light darted down the tunnel. He knew it couldn’t be a cave in, the tunnel had been reinforced just two months ago. Riley stood there; he thought he heard something in the darkness that sounded like breathing.

He chuckled to himself, it was nothing. Riley put the flashlight down and returned to his work. As soon as he was done with this, he would go to the cantina and nurse a few beers before dinner, go back, have a few more than go to his barracks and go to sleep.

Daveed stepped out of his office as an airplane banked over head. The pilot wasn't in a hurry so he doubted that that the plane carried any sort of emergency. He was the only medical for nearly five hundred miles. The natives, a surly lot - and growing even more so - went to their tribal shaman, but every one else came to him.

His hand brushed the fetish necklace the withered shaman had given him when he had first arrived. Something had told him to take it and it never left his neck. The shaman hadn't answered his questions as to why the native healer had felt he had needed extra protection but he wasn't about to dismiss it.

The sun was a pitiless orb sinking far too slowly into the west, and despite the relative coolness of the shade provided by wide veranda, sweat began trickling down Daveeds sides far too soon. His thin khaki shirt darkened as the sweat soaked it, but he ignored the discomfort as he stood looking over the compound for a while longer.

It was the end of shift but it looked as if the miners had worked with extra caution today. His tiny waiting room had sat empty all day and the day before as well. That was fine by him, gave him more time to read the latest batch of medical journals that had been bundled up and shipped out to him. His stomach growled and with a last sweeping look about the compound Daveed headed into the comfort of his air conditioned quarters

Ruben Halifax could not claim to enjoy his new location. It was filthy, run down, poorly equipped and filled with savages. Of course, he could tolerate all this for the greater good, his greater good. There were several advantages to being one of the mine mechanics at this pitiful excuse for a mining camp.

Ruben owned a simple shack of his own with a basic workshop attatched to it, allowing him to perform most of his work where he lived. He prefered to work alone instead of under the company of the other mechanics as he was left to his own thoughts and tasks, not all of which would be considered appropriate by others.

At the moment, Ruben sat before one of the large drills used in the mine. Apparently there was something wrong with the engine of the device as it wouldn't seem to start, yet nothing appeared to be wrong with it. In such a case when it couldn't be easily fixed down in the mine, the device was hauled up to his workshop where he could essentially place it upon the operating table.

Smiling to himself, Ruben hacked off a panel and plunged his arm into the guts of the machine, searching for something. A few minutes of searching around resulted with a satisfying click and another panel falling off, this one lower down on the drill. Behind this panel were several bags of gold dust and small nuggets. In total there must have been several kilograms, a good find today. Chuckling to himself, Ruben withdrew his prize and moved back into the main body of his shack. He then proceded to lith back a floor board and the bottom part of a wall board. There appeared to be hard clay underneath, yet Ruben withdrew a long knife and carefully cut out a rectangle of earth. Plunging a hooked blade into the clay, he lifted it up to reveal a large chamber several inches beneath the surface. The chamber was about three by three feet and held a large portion of spoils. Patting his treasure, Ruben placed it inside then replaced the clay lid, resealing it with some water dirt.

Content with today's find, Ruben replaced all the boards and wiped off the mud. His little operation had been running smoothly for quite some time and all seemed to be going well. He had a man inside the mine that arranged for his specially modified drill to 'break down' and would place the contents inside. Then it came up to Ruben, where he could collect the treasure and miraculously fix the drill.

With the unknown panel replaced, Ruben plunged his arm back into the machine and flicked another switch before replacing the main cover. A quick rev of the engine signified his success and so Ruben began his trek towards the mine, to inform the miners their drill was fixed.

Rob took a deep drag from the cigarette clasped between the two fingers, one of the only refuges from the intense boredom was the comforting embrace of tobacco. The sun beat down on Rob's toned form despite its retreat to the horizon and Rob let out a sigh of relief as the sun's cruel rays gave way to the temperate warmth between the boiling hot of the day and the freezing cold of the night. Sweat soaked through Rob's vest, adorned with a few combat necessities, it wasn't likely he'd ever need them, life in the camp was dull, to say the least and there was never enough beer to around for Rob's liking. All in all, Rob had no idea why he was here, the guards didn't seem to be very competent at fending off the man-eaters and Rob was no exception, he never heard or saw anything, the extra thirty-nine guards did seem a bit unnecessary but at least the pay was good.

Rob kept a pretty firm reputation as the camp's extortionist, the imposing man was never bright enough for anything else than physical labour and the result was a heavily muscled, aggressive man who picked fights, only the natives were exempt from this, the natives spooked Rob, they seemed like they knew some big secret that Rob and his comrades couldn't even fathom. Not to mention the fact that the natives didn't have beer put Rob off just a bit as well. Beer, being the main reason for Rob's shameless predations and extra rations being the second, Rob had quite a smooth racket going on, most people were reluctant to report Rob and he hadn't been found out by his superiors. Yet.

Yawning, Rob sat down on the makeshift chair - a pile of sandbags - and opened up his canteen and allowed the cheap alcohol to pour down his throat, the liquid burning his stomach gave him a warm sense of security as he surveyed the grasslands surrounding the camp. In the distance he thought he could see carrion waiting for their next meal.

Matthew mopped the floor in the mess hall for the 3rd time that night. He went back and forth across the hall, keeping it shiny and squeky clean. He prided himself on his floors. As the camp janitor, he felt it was partly his responsibility to help out with hygine. When he finished with the floor, he sat down on one of the tables and waited. No more than 5 minutes later, a man came walking in. As he walked by Matthew, his hands flited into his pockets and something hit the floor. Matt reached down on the pretense of fixing his mop, and pulled a small glass bottle into his sleeve. He had been doing this for several years. In his closet, he had a small, but growing stash of drugs and chemicals. If someone wanted to go on a ride, they would give him a few bags of gold dust or a nugget. He had a nice operation going. He made money, and nobody disliked him.

He was always fiddeling with the chemicals, trying to make something new or different. He once accidentally caught fire to his closet and nearly lost everything. But he was getting used to this place. After 20 years, it really didnt seem so bad. True, he would rather be working in some high level chemical lab, but he was making do with what he had.

Finishing up for the night, he went outside to watch the sunset. He loved watching it. He hadnt missed a night in 17 years. Although it was becoming more dangerous by the day with all of these attacks. "You would think that with 40 gaurds, they might be able to do something," he thought to himself.

As the sun went down, it cast a brilliant glow of red, orange, yellow and purple across the sky. And then, it was gone. He went back inside, and lay down on his cot, falling asleep, feeling perfectly safe.

Daveed lounged back in the anchient oversized barcalounger. Finding it had been a godsend, it was the utter pits to find furniture built for some one his size. He stood nearly seven foot tall and was no skinny hoops prospect either. He lugged it along with him every where, gladly paying the often exorbitant freight charges with a smile...or a well hidden body if bribes and fees didn't expedite matters.

The third Mohito of the night chilled one broad hand, the other was filled with the Journal of American Medicine. The articile on 'Hyperbaric Oxygenation and its effects on necrotic tissues' was fascinateing. He was briefly very envious of the clinic that published the paper. He'd give minor body parts for a decent autoclave much less a high tech hyperbaric chamber.

The orphaned cheeta cub he was raising cheeeped for attention and Daveed shifted so that it could climb into his lap. Carefull of its nonretractive claws the leggy youngster curled up and began licking the condensation dripping from the tumbler.

"Carefull thats all you get lad, whats inside could get me jailed for corrupting a minor" Daveeds chuckle rumbled around the sparely furnished living room of his suite.

Joe Kerr wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Another hard day of work had come to an end. He had done the same routine for the last fifteen years, a miner just like his father had been. The sun was already setting, right on schedule, he thought to himself. Of course the hot days gave way to cold nights, but fortunately he was used to it. Once out of the mine he took his hardhat off and ran a hand through his hair. He needed a shower and fast, not to mention something to eat and drink too.

Marcus Night was not your typical person. He was twenty-five years old, and already had to deal with much more than any other person his age.

In fact, Marcus was entirely blind, ever since that fateful day twelve years ago, when he woke up to find his sight decaying before his very eyes. It had taken some time to adjust, but being the survivor he was, he did it, and excelled in places he wouldn't have dreamed of.

Now, he was in the middle of nowhere, conducting psychology studies of the locals, their reactions to specific cultural beliefs and the likes. He wanted to find a link between primitive humans, and modern. To find a link that differed the separation of caveman against the modern-day man.

He reclined in a hammock made for him by one of the local natives and cleared his mind of his day's work. Nearby, several of the natives began to take up a commonly practiced ritual of firedancing.

A low snarl came from behind Daveed. "Do you do anything else but drink?"

The man turned around to find Murdoch glaring at him. Murdoch glared at Daveed before shifting his eyes towards the cheetah in the man's lap.

"What the fuck are you doing with that? Get rid of it."

*********************************************

Riley exited from the mine, covered in dust and grim. Not wanting to lite a cigarette and maybe set himself on fire, he went directly back to his barracks which he shared with another thirty miners and mechanics dispeared in five rooms. He went into his room, grabbed a towel, and a bar of soap. Riley went to the community shower and cleaned himself.

Refreshed, he headed back to his barracks, put on a fresh pair of kahki shorts and a blue t-shirt. He walked outside and lite a cigarette, taking a long pull, he closed his eyes and savored the taste in his mouth. Blowing the smoke out of his nostil, he headed over to the mess hall.

As the sun set, lights began to turn on around the camp, a bell rang through the camp. Dinner was ready.

Riley walked in, put out his smoke, and went into the mess line. He frowned, mash potatoes, pork, apples, and bread. Riley got his meal, a mug of coffee and went outside as others went to their meals. He sat down on a pile of sandbags and looked out towards the native village.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Rob on another pile of sandbags. Riley scowled, he disliked the man for what he was. He shouted over to him.

"Gonna go get some chow?"

Daveed looked up slowly at the one who had invaded his private quarters, and said mildly

"You really ought to knock when you enter some ones suite. It keeps one from getting shot."

as he set the cub aside in the seat of the lounger. He stood, one broad hand now filled with the Desert Eagle that had been hidden under his massive frame.

It's distinctinve triangular muzzel was aimed unwaveringly at Murdoch's chest. Daveed's finger was within the guard and resting lightly on the trigger. Murdoch had to know that Daveed regularly practised at the crude range the guards had created, and while he wasn't the best shot around her was no tyro either.

"Nope, the cubs mine and do you really want to die over this."

Daveeds voice was calmly matter of fact and Murdoch would have to get past Daveed to get to the cub, and that Daveed was not going to let happen.

After a few quick words with his man and informing the other miners that the the 'busted' drill was now fixed, Ruben decided to go for a quick stroll through the makeshift mining village. It was perhaps the worst residence he had ever taken upon himself to willingly reside at, yet some sacrifice had to be made for his greater good. Eventually Ruben would have enough resources from this place and it would be time to leave, back to Assington where he could get some good prices. That and this place was also a good location to remain unnoticed.

Back within his shack, Ruben quickly removed his grease stained overalls and replaced it with some black short and a navy blue t-shirt. He only had one suit here as the occassion for it was very rare. Cleaner than before, Ruben examined himself in the mirror and carefully slip a blade into the makeshift scabbard he had created on the inside of his shorts. One could never be too safe.

With everything in order, Ruben made a direct path towards the mess hall where he picked up tonights meal and moved outside, appreciating the cool evening breeze. The food was never particularly good, yet he could endure it. Ruben noticed another character off to his left, wearing khaki shorts, yet he chose to ignore the man and continue with his meal.

Rob was nearly startled for a second, the regular voice from behind him shook Rob out of his reverie, Rob viewed the smaller man with a mix of contempt and disdain, and the typical feelings a bully has. The ignorant mass of muscle didn't even retort until he finished his cigarette.

"Yes, I get some chow...yes, I get me some chow!"

Rob darted into the building, shoulder barged pass some of his smaller comrades and came up to the head of the dinner line, ignorant grin broad across his lips, contorting his usually dumb, neutral features into a merry smile. Rob held his plate out, stupid smile still on his lips, the slop landed on Rob's cheap plate with an audible plop, to anyone else, the food would've been vile, to Rob...it was like a gourmet meal. Rob came walking back to his sandbag pile and sat down, heaving a sigh into the cooling air, he cast a look towards Riley and stated, as Riley was looking into the food he was eating.

"What you lookin' at?" Rob accused, as if Riley was proffering an extremely haughty stare. The little hamster wheel in Rob's head turned happily as Rob had amused his extremely limited mind.

Thomas Nagubuma sat silently behind a few sandbags. He gripped his Soviet made AK-47 tighter as the sun went down. He thought of the irony of hating the damn commies yet using their equipment at the same time. But he hated Africa more than the Communists. He thought of the sheer horror of seeing his friends dragged throughout the streets of Mogadishu. Being captured. He hated Africans more than anyone. Being so close to Somalia also discomforted him. But he needed money. And now there were attacks happening. Odd attacks. It made him nervous. But he knew anything odd that came after him would be on the receiving end of his AK-47. That made him feel safe.

Murdoch growled something as he saw Daveed level the Desert Eagle at him. He had a Glock 17 in a holster behind him, but he would never get to it in time. Murdoch had rarely backed down from a fight, in school he had always quickly taken the offensive and the other kid would be laying on the ground bleeding after a quick struggle. Though, he still knew how to pick his battles. He would get the doctor another time.

"Fine...keep the little shit head you drunk. Mark my words, I will destory you and your pitiful medical carreer. You will be lucky if you become a voodoo witch doctor."

Murdoch left the man and his cheetah alone. He moved out of the small hospital and headed out into the cooling day. He spotted Thomas on a pile of sandbags and walked up to him.

"Nagubuma, get your ass up. You and I are going for a car trip and you are riding shotgun."

***********************************************

Riley looked at Rob with a disgusted look in his eyes. He turned away from the sight and spotted Murdoch say something to one of the guards. Wonder what the old man is up to?

He finished his meal and returned his tray to the mess for cleaning. Riley walked back outside, put a cigarette in his mouth, pulled out a black zippo with a green snake on it and lit the smoke. He walked up to Ruben, he couldn't remember if he had ever met him.

"Hey mate. Haven't seen you around here before. I'm Riley...care for a smoke?"

Daveed's level stare never left Murdoch as the man cursed him and left, but inside he was howling with bitter laughter. 'You utter ass, if you only knew!' he thought then shook himself and went to refill his Mohito. Tonight was a good night to get drunk. And if Murdoch came back, well he could always claim he was hallucinateing... or defending himself.

"And you never ever get the man who may have you on his operateing table at some point pissed at you. You really want to wake up dead you stupid wanker?" He muttered as he went into the tiny kitchen and fixed himself another drink and a plate of tinned meat sandwiches.

Ruben looked up at the figure speaking to him. He wasn't quite sure who it was, but he looked like one of the mechanics. Deciding not to be completely hostile, Ruben gave the man a nod of acknowledgement yet declined the smoke with a gesture of his hand.

"No, I'm not a smoker. I'm Ruben, newest mechanic."

He looked at Rilely with a critical glare that wasn't hostile yet wasn't exactly pleasant either. Ruben wasn't out here to make friends.

Joe had taken his shower and walked outside. He lit up a cigarette and inhaled a large puff of smoke. Looking towards the sky, he let the smoke slowly drift away. After the usual hard slog in the mines, a shower and a cigarette was very welcome, the cooling air of night was very refreshing.

Murdoch growled something as he saw Daveed level the Desert Eagle at him. He had a Glock 17 in a holster behind him, but he would never get to it in time. Murdoch had rarely backed down from a fight, in school he had always quickly taken the offensive and the other kid would be laying on the ground bleeding after a quick struggle. Though, he still knew how to pick his battles. He would get the doctor another time.

"Fine...keep the little shit head you drunk. Mark my words, I will destory you and your pitiful medical carreer. You will be lucky if you become a voodoo witch doctor."

Murdoch left the man and his cheetah alone. He moved out of the small hospital and headed out into the cooling day. He spotted Thomas on a pile of sandbags and walked up to him.

"Nagubuma, get your ass up. You and I are going for a car trip and you are riding shotgun."


"Whatever you want, sir" Nagubuma said bitterly. "Where was Mr. Murdoch going and why does he need me?" Thomas thought to himself. He got up and went over to the car.

OOC: I know I volunteered earlier, but I admit I got swamped in other RPs and won't be able to play out my role to any decent extent.

Again, I'm sorry.

ooc: its okay Sidestreamer.

ic:

Murdoch climbed into the drivers seat of the Land Rover with Thomas next to him and headed down into the dry riverbed. The Rover bounced as he swung in the direction of the native village. He hated going there, he hated the natives. He reached down with one hand and made sure his Glock was there.

Murdoch drove into the village, the women pulled thier children back as the man stopped the vehicle and climbed out. An old man dressed in cheetah skin clothes, holding a long walking stick moved slowly towards Murdoch and Thomas. His ebony skin was streached over his bony frame. He produced a smile and spoke to Murdoch in his native tounge.

Murdoch talked back, a small snarl was detected in his voice. The old man waved his hand in the direction of a man in a hammock. Murdoch turned to Thomas.

"Wait here, make sure your AK is ready for action. They might do something...these niggers are unprodictable."

Murdoch moved past a group of men who had stopped thier dance, thier dark eyes staring at him coldy. Murdoch walked up to Marcus.

"Mr. Night, I am going to have to ask you to come with me back to the camp. For your own safety."

****************************************************

Riley smiled to Ruben as he blew a stream of smoke into the air. "Good to have another mechanic mate. Could use you to help out with the choppers. We have been having to cannibalize one to make the other run."

Riley looked up to see Joe enjoying a cigarette. He also noticed something in the brush behind him. Riley gulped, he saw something moving in the brush, but didn't know what it was. A lion, cheetah, or maybe just a wild boar.

He moved away from Ruben, his eyes firmly fixed on the object in the brush. When he got close enough to Joe, he said as quietly as he could, but loud enough for Joe to hear.

"Joe...Joe, walk slowly over here man. There is something behind you in the grass."

Joe looked up at Riley, cigarette still in mouth. He wouldn't look behind him, that was just asking for an attack and he knew he could trust Riley to watch his back. Silently he nodded and ever so slowly walked towards Riley, treading each step carefully. Though it may turn out to be nothing, here you couldn't take that chance. Joe kept his focus ahead, ready to make a break for it if needed.

Riley slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out his zippo and a rag. He balled up the rag and prepared to lite it, hoping to create a few second distraction so the two men could bolt for it. He watched as the shape appeared out of the brush. In the dimming light he could not make out the shape.

The compound lights flicked on automatically, a light on a nearby barrack showed the creature. The large warthog stood in the light for several seconds before bolting back into the brush. Riley looked at Joe.

"You got nothing to fear, it was a damn warthog. Probably smelled food from the mess."

Riley looked at Thomas.

"You got nothing to fear, it was a damn warthog. Probably smelled food from the mess."

OOC: What? I thought my guy was with Murdoch?

IC: Thomas shifted uneasily by the jeep. He made sure his AK-47 was loaded to the teeth. "Damn the Murdoch! I will shoot him myself if he gets me close to the Africans at night again.!" Thomas thought. Any trouble and he would start shooting.

Joe inhaled on his cigarette and breathed out a huge puff of smoke. "Well better safe then sorry," he said. "Thanks man."

OOC: OH jeez. Sorry about that. Wasn't thinking.

IC:

Riley smiled and patted Joe on the back.

"Hey man no problem. Though, if I hadn't seen it and you lead it into camp, we could have had fresh meat for breakfast."

Riley finished his cigarette, dropped it on the ground and squashed it under his foot.

"Ya wanna get a beer and maybe find out about that new mechanic Ruben?"

Ruben sat back calmy, watching the warthog situation unfold and come to an uneventful conclusion. One hand rested upon his leg whilst the other gripped a blade, just in case the situation had turned nasty.

Thankfully, all was well and so he went back to eating his dinner.

"Sure," Joe replied, dropping his cigarette to the floor and putting it out with his foot. He scratched the stubble on his chin. "Shame about breakfast though."

OOC: just want to make sure you guys know why im not posting. its cause my d00d went to sleep lol. just makin sur eyou dont think im slackin off or somthing.

Marcus looked up as he heard the chanting and stomping of feet halt. He laid his voice recorder down, turning it off. Upon hearing Murdoch's request that he accompany them, he shook his head negatively, turning his blind eyes toward the man, "No no, I'd rather remain here. I just abhor those camps, so full of young brutes who are full of themselves. After all, my work is here, I cannot leave them." He indicated toward the natives who could be heard shuffling about to his right.

He waved Murdoch away with his hand, "Leave me, I will not relocate. I trust these natives more than I will ever trust your boys. I have become part of their clan, part of their family."

He repeated the message, but this time in the natives' tongue. A cry of agreement went up as they understood what Night was saying to the white man whom they called "White Snake", a non respectful name, but fitting for such a man as Murdoch.

Murdoch stared at Marcus coldly. He knew the man couldn't see him, but Murdoch looked as though he would kill the man. He reached down and grabbed the man by the collar, almost instantly he felt a cold point on the back of his neck.

Murdoch dropped Marcus, happy to see the man fall on the ground. He turned back to the young warrior who glared at him through pitch black eyes. The old man shuffled up and spoke to the warrior and the man left.

The old man looked at Murdoch and spoke in broken English. "Pardon....young men...too headstrong."

Murdoch gave the old man the finger and turned back to Marcus. "If you wish to stay here...then stay here and don't come close to my camp."

Murdoch walked back to the Land Rover and Thomas. He could see the man was nervous.

"What is troubling you?"

**************************************************

Riley and Joe headed to the small catina. An old jutbox sat in a corner, several wooden tables and chairs were sprawled across the room and a pool table dominated the middle of the room. Riley walked up to the bar and sat down. He ordered a beer and took a sip of the cold liquid.

"Shit that is good stuff. Joe, remember about a month back some lion came and killed a guy and the natives said they wacked it. Murdoch doesn't think that is true, what do you think?"

Rob fidgeted with his Automatic Kalashnikov, he was bored, intensely bored. Rob's tiny brain worked itself into a sweat while thinking of something fun to do, anything cerebral was beyond rob, so out of the question, no sports as there was no equipment. One final option flashed up in Rob's thick skull.

Bar room brawl.

Rob set his assault rifle down and made his way inside, the moonlight proffering enough light to show the arrogant brute swagger inside, opening the cheap door to the cantina with a loud, intentional clatter. Rob grinned as the crowd inside eyed him up and down with mixed feelings.

Joe laughed quietly. "Probably just gave it a slap on the wrist and it not to do it again," he joked. He ordered a beer and took a large chug, "Need that, refreshing." He looked over at Riley. "Well it depends on what they mean by 'wracked' it."

Murdoch stared at Marcus coldly. He knew the man couldn't see him, but Murdoch looked as though he would kill the man. He reached down and grabbed the man by the collar, almost instantly he felt a cold point on the back of his neck.

Murdoch dropped Marcus, happy to see the man fall on the ground. He turned back to the young warrior who glared at him through pitch black eyes. The old man shuffled up and spoke to the warrior and the man left.

The old man looked at Murdoch and spoke in broken English. "Pardon....young men...too headstrong."

Murdoch gave the old man the finger and turned back to Marcus. "If you wish to stay here...then stay here and don't come close to my camp."

Murdoch walked back to the Land Rover and Thomas. He could see the man was nervous.

"What is troubling you?"

Thomas stared at Murdoch.

"I should shoot you for bringing me here. I was captured during the botched Mogadishu operation in 1993. I was forced to watch my dead friends be dragged through the streets like dogs. Bring me around these damn blackies again, and I will probably not stop to think about the consequences for shooting you."

OOC: Bump.

Riley shrugged. "Wacked....killed it I guess. I hope, don't want a man-eater running around. You see, the key is when there is one around walk with another person. Then, outrun the person with you...not the lion."

Riley looked into the dusty bar mirror on the wall and saw Rob enter. Oh Chirst, the simpleton is here. He sucked his beer, reached over to a bowel and grabbed a peanut. He broke it open and ate the nut.

"Don't look now Joe, we got a guard with an IQ of a pile of dirt in the house."

********************************************

Murdoch scowled at Thomas. He had heard of some operation in Somalia a while ago.

"So, you are an American...interesting. I wouldn't have to worry about these darkies. They don't have modern weapons, they believe in magic and shit like that.'

Murdoch climbed back into the Land Rover, the pair drove back in the darkness and they arrived several minutes later in the motor pool. He shut off the engine and climbed out.

"Thomas, one last thing before you go and do whatever. Tell the good doctor to come to my office."

With that, Murdoch walked across a patch of dead grass to the two story office building, walked into his office, poured himself a scotch and sat in his chair.

Joe let out a chuckle. "That's been a rule since the dawn of man kind," he smiked before looking at the guard via the mirror. "No different to any other guard really."

He shrugged and took another gulp of beer.

"Damn the son of a bitch has it in for me tonight!" Daveed groused to himself as he pulled on his jump boots. After carefully checking for critters, one could never be too careful about that habit. He had no desire to find a scorpion, or worse, making a home in his boots. Settleing the now deeply asleep cub into the nesting box, Daveed tucked his Desert Eagle into his thigh holster and set off across the compound to shortly arrive at the camp managers office.

"What do you want now Murdoch? and don't tell me to get rid of the cub... just drop it and we'll be friends"

The cold look in Daveed's eye made that a lie but he was offering at least an apperance of cooperation.

Riley looked at Rob through the mirror and chuckled with Joe. He kept an eye on the guard as he reached over to a bowl full of peanuts. He took one and waited till Rob turned away. He chucked it over his shoulder and quickly placed his hand back on the bar and watched as it hit Rob in the back of head.

"Bullseye."


****************************************

Murdoch looked at Daveed, turned in his chair to his liqour, opened it and pulled out two glasses and a brown bottle. He poured a generous portion of the amber colored liquid into the glasses. He slid one over to Daveed and lifted the other to his lips and took a tiny sip.

"Flint Firebrand, we call it in the Golden Simatar 'drinkable napalm'. It can cause you to go blind if you drink too much too fast."

Murdoch leaned back in his chair and looked at Daveed.

"Let us get one thing straight, I don't like you. Your a disgrace to your prefession and I will be happy when I leave this damn place. As for the cub, I want it back out in nature or it stays in your room. I don't want that fucking thing wandering around the hospital. It is still a meateater and wouldn't mind sinking its teeth into someone's body at the smell of fresh blood. If it wanders out into the camp or anywhere outside of your room, it will be killed on sight.

"Second, if you draw your gun on me again....I will kill you."

He moved a newspaper on his desk to reveal a loaded Ruger GP-141 .357 magnum revolver.

"Get it?"

"The cub will stay safe in my quarters or on a leash when not. The freaking Egyptains tamed and trained cheetas for generations. 'Side's I know some people over in Kenya who'll take the cub when he's old enough and put him in their release program."

Daveed looked at the Ruger and laughed low as he took a sip of the amber liquid.

"Not bad!" he smiled coldly. "I don't really care what you think of me, and you can consider me a disgrace to my profession all you want. Just remember though...do you really want the man that may save your life someday as your enemy?"

Daveed paused and brought up something that still bothered him. " You and I both know that what ever killed those men wasn't a lion, or a leopard, or a cape buffalo."

He ticked off Africa's most notorious threesome of man killers. He hadn't been allowed to do the autopsy but he'd gotten a good enough look to rule those out. An no cobra bite produced shredded bodies, and there were no water sources locally for hippo, another known African killer.

Finished with his dinner, Ruben found himself with nothing to do this night. All other issues and plans had been taken care of during the day and so for the first time in a long while, Ruben found himself with spare time. Looking around the camp, he spotted the bar and decided he would treat himself to a drink. It had been a year or so since he really drank anything serious. Whilst not intending to get too drunk as Ruben always liked to be in control, some vodka shots would do him well.

And so the newest mechanic of this mining camp plunged through the bar doors and immediately made for the bar, promptly asking for a shot glass and a bottle of vodka. He wouldn't get through it all, but it would be saved for other, rare occassions.

Noting that other mechanics and camp regulars were also in the bar, Ruben found a quiet corner to himself where he could reflect in his own drunken glory.

"Good aim," Joe quietly said with a smirk.

Murdoch looked across at Daveed and snorted. He would still have his men shoot the cheetah if the animal looked at him funny. He sipped some more of the Firebrand and stared at him.

"It was a damn lion that did killed those workers. This is lion country, probably an old lion or a wounded one who figures we are an easy catch. Grant it, it was a messy kill but it didn't have time to pull out the fine china and have a nice sit down dinner with a basket of rolls."

He looked at Daveed and pointed a finger through a window towards the native camp.

"I'd rather trust my life to that damn witch doctor next door than put myself in your hands."

"Murdoch, lie to youself all you want - you know what I said is true"

Daveed finished his remaining sips in a smooth swallow and stood. The ceiling lights behind his nearly seven foot tall frame threw long shadows that seemed to sway, though the good doctor was not. He was nowhere near intoxicated enough for it to impair him, but he had a pleasant buzz on, and he didn't intend to let the sour natured Murdoch ruin it for him.

"Go play with the witch doctor and see if he'll treat you or poison you. He despises the lot of us"

With that parting note Daveed headed out of the office and back towards his quarters attached to the hospital.

Murdoch quietly drummed his fingers against his desk as Daveed left his office. He dispised the man and as he stood up a guard ran into his office. The man spoke to him in rapid German, Murdoch's eyes grew wide and he turned to the locker behind his desk. He opened it and pulled out a Einfield SMLE No.1 Mk.3, loaded it and turned to the intercom.

"All personal, please report back to your barracks immediatly. I say again, return to your barracks and remain there. Guard shifts one and three please get on duty."

********************************

Riley drained the rest of his beer.

"Fucking shit, what the hell can it be now?"

"Ah crap," Joe sighed, downing the last of his beer. "Someones gone postal I reckon."

Daveed heard the announcement sputter over the many speakers located haphazzardly about the compound. He broke into a jog, and reached the hospital quickly. He took a minute to make sure that the cub was safe and that all doors and windows to his quarters were closed and locked.

From the gun safe he took a Calico carbine and two of the tubular 100 round mags of 9mm. Once the carbine was loaded and ready he took the other mag to the recertion desk in the main waiting room. He checked the rest of the small hospital and made sure that the lights were on and the treatment rooms were ready for any incoming. His slight intoxication had vanished.

Riley sat there and looked at Joe.

"I don't think so man, we would have heard gunshots."

He stood and walked out of the bar. He smiled at Ruben as he jogged across the compound back to his barracks. He walked into the small room where his roommates were already there. He climbed onto his top bunk and looked out the small window to see Murdoch with a rifle and several others moving into the bush with flashlights.

************************************

Murdoch shined the light on the carcasse of a cow. He brushed the flies away with the barrel of his rifle. The animal lay only fifty meters from camp, its bellie torn wide open, its insides hung from the shrubs like tinsel. The head was nearly removed from the body, only connected by a few strands of muscles. He stared at the creature before shining his light on the ground. He saw the paw print of a lion. A smile crossed his face.

"Schroder, go get the doctor."

The guard turned and hurried to the hospital. The German carefully opened the door of the hospital and looked at Daveed.

"Herr Doctor, Herr Murdoch wants you. Follow me."

Daveed grabbed his travelling bag, the calico and locked the door behind himself. He followed Schroder at a jog to where Murdoch stood by an obvious lion kill. One of the natives cows wouldn't be showing up for morning milking.

He went to one knee and gave it a thorough examination, though it was patently not needed. Standing he dusted off his hands and growled at Murdoch.

"Lion kill"

Murdoch shouldered his rifle and smiled at Daveed.

"No lion huh? It appears the good doctor was wrong."

He smiled and looked at the guards. He gave a slight nod and they went to their duties. He looked down at Daveed as the man stood and headed back to the hospital. Murdoch looked into the night sky, he admired the twinkling stars for a few minutes before heading to his bungalow.

Across the riverbed, the natives made thier fire higher and brighter and continued to chant......


The Next Day

Riley whistled as he walked back to his barrack from the showers. It was a short walk and he was one of the first people up. The sun was slowly rising in the sky as the darkness faded. He stopped, looked around, lowered his trousers and pissed into a bush. After he relived himself, Riley turned to head back to his barrack when he saw a red spot in the bush.

Not knowing what it was, he started to walk towards it. He walked through knee and waist high grass before he reached the spot. His eyes grew wide and his face pale. Riley turned and ran like hell back to the camp. The man burst into a guard shack and rang the alarm.

Murdoch jumped out of his bed. He put on a pair of boots and grabbed his rifle. He ran outside to find a few men running into the bush after Riley. Murdoch darted after them, he bullied his way through a ring of men and stared at the scene.

Dark crimson blood covered the earth and grass, the thing in the center of the pool appeared to be a man; what was left of a man. Much of the skin had been shredded off the body and lay in small heaps around the corpse, his guts where laying out on the dusty ground, still attached to the inside of his body. The skull was crushed and the lower jaw sat a foot from the rest of the body.

"Everyone, stay where you are."

Murdoch moved slowly around the circle of men and the corpse. A chill went up his spine, there were no tracks of any kind. Spare for the foot prints of the men who were now standing. This could have covered up the tracks of the animal. The creature would have drug the body, yet there was no sign of it. No screams where heard last night.

No tracks, no marks, just blood and gore.

Matthew woke up the next morning to the sound of the alarm. He hurridly dressed, grabbed his AK he had under his bed, and jogged outside. He saw a group of men standing around a bush and he walked over.
A horrible smell, the smell or dead flesh, greated him. He had smelled it only once before, a long long time ago...Brushing the memory aside, he pushed his way into the circle and found, as he suspected, a dead man. Or, what was left. Its skull was crushed in, and its intrails were hanging out of its stomach.
He stared a moment longer, then slowly walked back to his tent. He put away his AK, and walked off to the mess hall for some breakfast. At least there wouldnt be much of a line...

Ruben was woken up by the blazing alarm, pounding against his sensitive head. He wasn't too hungover, yet he'd obviously had enough to make him feel it the next morning. Getting up slowly, Ruben dressed himself and took hold of the USP under his pillow.

Stumbling out of his shack, the supposed mechanic dragged himself through the camp until he came across the assembled men and the mess that seemed to have mesmerised them. Looking upon the gory mess, Ruben whislted. He wasn't disturbed by gore, yet the idea of what exactly did this did intrigue him.

Since there was no immediate danger, Ruben stumbled into the mess hall and aquired himself a cup of coffee and breakfast. He would sit there until he deemed himself able to stand once again.

Daveed growled as the alarm pounded against his ears and sent the cub to cowering under his bed. He pulled the little one out and cuddled it for a moment as he waited to see if gun fire and explosions followed.

When it didn't and no one was yelling frantically for him he gave the cub a last calming stroke and stood from the bed. Throwing on a pair of jeans, he gave his boots their usual check and headed out to see what had warrented the alarm. He grabbed a khaki shirt but didn't bother to button it as he stopped on the hosiptal's wide veranda to scan the compound.

There, small in the distance, he saw most of the camp's occupants gathered around something...and it wasn't where last nights lion kill was either. He went and retrieved his go bag and headed that way.

Shortly he was shoving his way through the crowd. He stopped when he got to the inner edge. The blood was plentiful, now beginning to dry to a dull ocher in spots, but ...

there was no trail of blood - it was pooled, and somewhat splattered, over a limited area. He stalked along the inner circle of horrified mine workers, estimating the amount of blood. Blood tricked people - a cup could look like a gallon and the smell alone could nauseate some, it's bright copper high note a warning from deep in the hindbrain where instinct ruled, and yammered that one of our fellows had lost the fluid of life.

He completed his walk around and now moved in closer, ignoreing Murdoch, and the first low voiced rush of questions from the miners. He looked at the piles of flayed skin. He knew the look of flayed skin, it was prominent in the memories he drnk to forget. And this skin had been flayed not just shredded off the body. He carefully noted the location of the piles in relation to the body and other things.

The entrails were next. Despite the deeper pools of blood that had resisted the absorbancy of the thirsty african soil, he went to one knee besides the pile with its inevitable coating of flies. He waved his broad hand over the mass, scareing off the flies for a brief span of time. The rectum end of the colon was visible, and the detatchment had not been a 'wrench and tear'. The cut had been made with something sharp and properly handled, there was no shredding, no sawing, just a clean line of parted flesh.

And yet the lower jaw and skull...

Daveed stoood and looked at Murdock his eyes filled with silent venemous laughter.

"Get some of these me to bring the stretcher from the hospital. I'll need to look at the remains under better conditions. Just bring it to the operating room, I'll complete the autopsy there."

He stood, ignoring the fact that his jeans were soaked with blood and headed back to prepare for the arrival of the body.

Doesn't looked good, Joe thought to himself. This didn't look to be ordinary, he had frozen on the spot as he looked at the body.

"Who or what could have done this," he wondered to himself.

It was far from what he wished to see before breakfast and a day in the mines.

After a nights rest, Thomas got up, grabbed his AK-47, and went to his usual outpost during the day. However, he saw a group of people that seemed to be looking at something. Then he saw the corpse.

"What the fuck happened to that guy?" Thomas said, trying to force down the bile rising in his throat.

OoC: Very sorry, revision for tests hit me like a ton of bricks! And sorry in advance, this will be a bad post as I'm doing it in-between revision and all.

IC: Rob felt nothing hit the back of his head, his skull was far too thick to allow even a slight feeling to penetrate it, he merely walked out of the bar, barging a few people out of the way, and returned to his post, a pleasant alternative to the rage he would've released otherwise.

The following day, Rob hauled himself up out of the dirty bed, put on some clothes and strode outside, immediately, the smell hit him, the familiar tangy iron that came with the incarnadine life fluid, it didn't take even Rob long to find the source, the clump of people around the body were quickly shouldered out of the way. Rob came face to face with a disgusting sight, all the colour left his face, leaving Rob as white as a sheet, his eyes flicked around the corpse, or parts of and felt ill. Very ill.

Murdoch looked at Rob and Joe.

"You two, get a streacher and haul this poor bastard to the hospital."

He then looked at Thomas. "Get three good men and a Jeep and search for the lion."

Riley looked at the mangled corpse and nearly vomited. It barely resembled a human being.

"Fuck, whatever killed him was real quiet."

"Lion killed him." Murdoch growled.

"Lions don't kill like that sir." Riley shot back.

Murdoch simply glared at Riley as he moved off into the bush, searching for tracks of the creature that killed the man. No tracks. He turned and headed back to his office. He turned on the PA system.

"Attention all personal. We have a maneater on the loose again, all work is to be stopped for today and this base will go on lockdown. Curfew starts right after dinner tonight. That is all."

Joe nodded and looked toward Rob, "Right, lets go get the stretcher then," he said. Not really waiting for Rob, he headed off.

Rob was taken aback by the kind of half-friendly tone in which Joe had addressed him, seeing no reason not to join him, Rob strode up and kept a small distance at Joe's flank. Tension began to build and Rob decided to take a hammer to chilly ice.

"What do you think killed it?"

Having heard the question, Joe thought for a moment. He didn't really know, only that it couldn't have been a lion. Lions couldn't mangle someone that badly, could they? He shook his head.

"I have no idea," he replied, he didn't turn to look at Rob, remembering what Riley said about him. "It wasn't a lion, it was something else."

The moment Murdoch made his announcement, Ruben could tell things weren't going to turn out good. He'd had this feeling on other occassions and unfortunately it was never very specific. No work today meant no stash from the mine, putting his business on hold. And this maneater or whatever it was that killed the poor bastard out there, it wasn't helping either.

Content in the fact that he couldn't do anything about it, Ruben continued to eat breakfast calmly, which seemed quite odd since everyone else was all excited over the hunt and recent death.

Riley staggered into the mess hall and got his breakfast. He sat down across from Ruben, he couldn't believe the man was so calm after this. Riley bit into a piece of bacon.

"Ruben, how can you be so.....calm after what happened?"

*********************************************

Murdoch stood there as he watched much of the group disapate.

"Sah.."

Murdoch turned to find the same old man standing before him, the same one he saw in the village a few hours before. He scowled at the black man, he wanted to slam his rifle into the man's mouth and pull the trigger.

"What?"

"You...you have awakened demons of past. You must leave...now...or the shadows of old will take you."

"Shadows eh? I suppose that is what you call the lions...you said you killed the man eater."

The man's eyes bulged as he reached out and grabbed Murdoch with a bony hand.

"No...not the lions. Shadows from earth....down......the demons have returned. They come to suck the blood from the living."

Murdoch pushed the old man off him. "Go back to your mud shacks..and don't come here again."

The old man looked horried at Murdoch as he walked back to his village. He arrived a half hour later and entered the hut that Night was staying in.

"Night, you must....talk to the white men over there. They must leave or they will die."

Daveed went quickly to his quarters and brought his tape recorder into the surgical suite. He had no set up to properly do a autopsy, but he'd paid his way through college by working as a denier, the hands on assistant to a coroner. He figured he could do a resonable enough, if not very high tech job with what was available. He finished gathering other items he thought he'd need as he waited for the body to arrive.

Stripping off his blood soaked jeans he threw on a pair of scrub and a surgical gown, though part of him wondered if he just ought to do it in the nude. The smell of an autopsy was damn hard to get out of clothes. He tossed the jeans into the commercial sized washer, dumped in a handfull of detergent and a hefy dose of bleach then set it to running.

By that time Joe and Rob had brought the corpse in and he waved them into the operating room.

"You guys don't need to stay. Tell Murdoch I'll let him know the results when I'm done."

Riley staggered into the mess hall and got his breakfast. He sat down across from Ruben, he couldn't believe the man was so calm after this. Riley bit into a piece of bacon.

"Ruben, how can you be so.....calm after what happened?"

Looking up from his breakfast, Ruben matched Riley's gaze for a few moments before speaking. He didn't particularly want the attention of other people, yet he supposed it was unavoidable.

"I've seen a lot of death. This is nothing."

Ruben didn't care to mention where he had seen all this death, but he had learned to accept it many years ago.

OOC: Sorry guys, but I might be able to get a post in tonight, but after that, I will not be in reach of a computer until Sunday. I will return on Sunday.

Night looked up in the general direction of the tribal leader who had insisted that he speak to the men in the mining camp. He couldn't see him, but he could sense the concern in the man's voice.

"What do they think it is causing the deaths?"

"Lions. But you and I know that is not true."

Night nodded, "Aye, They are demons, right?"

"Yes, and they will die if they stay. They must go into the earth again!"

Night took hold of his walking stick with both hands, leaning on it slightly. "Very well. I shall speak to them."

"Thank you. Both this village and their camp will be saved if you can get them to do what they must."

Night chimed in, "Assuming they listen in the first place..." He turned and began walking toward the camp at a brisk pace, something a little odd to be seen with a blind man. Even though the ground was rough and uneven, he chose his path, treading as lightly as a feather upon the earth. As he walked, he hummed a native song from memory.

Riley looked at Ruben, the man was a mystery to him. Whatever death Ruben had seen had surpassed the mulitaled body that was now on Daveed's cutting table.

"Well, what do you think nailed that guy? The negros? Lions?"

******************************************

Murdoch turned to head back to his office and call in a report to LMC's headquarters. He walked across a field of knee high grass when he saw something moving towards him. He sighed, Night.

Murdoch approached the blind man. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

The answer to Riley's question eluded Ruben, just like it did everyone else. He'd seen death before, but never something like that. The body had just been ripped apart for no apparent reason.

"To be honest, I don't know what did that. It definitely wasn't a lion, they don't just tear stuff apart for no good reason. And it's way too messy to be done by a human wielding a blade. Something nasty did, but I've got no idea what the hell it could be. You've been here longer than me, has this ever happened before?"

Whilst he could deal with the gore, Ruben was slightly curious about this. Besides it being bad for his business, he was starting to believe bad things just happened around him, especially with his recent history.

Autopsys even under the best conditions take hours. Daveed just shrugged at the thought of a missed luch and probably a missed dinner, and set to work.

Autopsy 101 primitive conditions, jury rigging necessary... A heavy rubberized sheet place under the body then lifted with chains to be attached to a free hanging scales clamped to the main light over head. Weight obtained and the whole mess undone. Sheet set aside for later use. Vital measurements taken - height, length of feet, legs, girth of rib cage, and more. Color of hair, eyes, such scars that could still be discerned on the mostly flayed body, location of moles, wens, tattoos noted as well. Blood samples from a major vein,and a major artery, taken -he'd draw hearts blood when he made the y incission down the body.

Once the painstaking examination of the externals was complete ( includeing a close examination of the remains of the crushed skull and detatched jawbone) he tilted the table slightly and began the process of opening up the bosy for internal excavation. The Y incission was not long, the abdomen's savaging precluded the need.

Hours passed as he worked slowly, doing his best to be painb stakingly thorough. He knew it was no lion attack, and so every wound was measured, depth of penetration noted, the nature of the wound detailed into his tape recorder.

There was no bite radius. When a bite is made, the primary points of intrusion ( the fang marks ), can tell you the spread of the mouth, thus the size of the head, thus the size of th creature...

but there were puncture wounds that were not combined with pressure wounds - claws that puncture do that and yes there were some but not all ...

He wished depseratly for the laboratory equipment to test for histamine reaction. That would give him the best indicator if the wounds had occured over a period of time or relatively quickly.

But the thing that spoke the loudest of this not being an animal kill...The liver had not been eaten. No animal passed up the liver. (The bulky organ had sustained a moderately sever stellate fracture, but that alone would not have threatened the man' s life not with any sort of moderately advanced treatment available.)

One thing he had noticed even out on the veldt, one thing he had not mentioned out there in hearing of the miners, as spooked as they were. The skull, mangled and crushed as it was, was there, the eyes, the ears, the outer flesh....

but the brain was not.

Riley shrugged slightly.

"We had a miner die from a lion attack a month or so back. Bastard got himself drunk and stumbled off. Lion was probably an old one or wounded and couldn't catch himself a good meal. The old man believes that it was the natives, the guy always blames shit on the negros because of thier witchcraft and shit. I heard something about demons sucking blood from the living and devouring thier flesh."

He took another gulp of coffee. "The good doc will know I beat..when he finishes."

Night did not halt as Murdoch confronted him with a rude, "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Night remained silent as he walked some more. His hearing picked up the faintest of sounds far away, sounds that even normal, sight-blessed humans would never had heard. The animal calls was different today, as if they whispered of a unseen force somewhere. A force not to be trifled with. He himself half believed the myths and legends of the natives, yet he still retained his Cambridge education that was rooted deeply in scientific study and reasoning.

"I hardly think you are clueless as to why I am here, Mr. Murdoch." he replied at long last as he made his way into the camp. His destination seemed mysterious, his intentions unknown, unseen as to where he wished to go. He was the only one who knew.

Murdoch gave a snarl as Night walked past him towards his camp. Murdoch moved up behind Night and shoved him into the dirty white siding of one of the barracks. Night moved off the wall but felt something ram into his gut, he moved a hand along the object and felt the barrel of Murdoch's Einfield.

"I told you to stay the fuck outta my camp darkie lover...now, tell me why you are here then I will send you back to that village of bastards and whores. Or, I can just shoot you."

With a movement that seemed to be nearly impossible for such a man as Murdoch, he swept the gun aside with one hand, while simultaneously bringing the staff up and across the brow of Murdoch's face. Another step forward and he had brought the staff into Murdoch's throat, halting it as it pressed lightly but firmly into the man's esophagus.

In a strange sense, one that could see the moments between them, it seemed that the blind man had been dancing with a fluid grace swinging the staff about as if it were but a construct of the wind that had materialized and slammed into its target with stunning force. In only a few moments, Night was atop Murdoch, staring straight ahead. He spoke softly, his voice not having lost its calm.

"Foolish is the one who drives his allies of the shadows away." he said.

Murdoch glared at the blind man as he felt the staff against his neck. He wanted so badly to tear this man apart limb by limb and set out the meat for the lions. He heard footsteps and a guard came around the corner, looking slightly confused. The guard looked at Murdoch and spoke in a Belgian accent.

"Sir, is everything alright?" The guard took his AK-74 from his shoulder and craddled it in his hands. The barrel was not leveled at Night, but the Belgian was ready to bring down the blind man if need be.

Murdoch looked at the guard and read his tag. "Well Dupree, we were having a little chat and things just kind of got out of hand. Go back about your business."

The guard nodded and moved away, yet he kept them in his sights; just in case Night tried anything.

Murdoch glared at Night and knocked the stick away from his neck.

"Alright Night, why are you here? Is it because of that old man?"

Night bent over, his blind eyes looking at Murdoch with an unsettling calm. He gently assisted the man to his feet. At last, he stood on his own feet, still awaiting Night's response.

"Yes. I am here because they seek my assistance. You percieve the recent slaughter to be the work of a lion or several. Have your doctors and scientists said that the wounds inflicted match that of the kind inflicted by such creatures?"

Riley shrugged slightly.

"We had a miner die from a lion attack a month or so back. Bastard got himself drunk and stumbled off. Lion was probably an old one or wounded and couldn't catch himself a good meal. The old man believes that it was the natives, the guy always blames shit on the negros because of thier witchcraft and shit. I heard something about demons sucking blood from the living and devouring thier flesh."

He took another gulp of coffee. "The good doc will know I beat..when he finishes."

Ruben couldn't help but chuckle at the demon remark. He might as well expect it, first it had been zombies, why not demons?

"Fair enough, you'd expect something like that could happen. But whatever did that last night, it sure wasn't a lion. And by the looks of things, there was plenty of blood that hadn't been sucked up. It was no vampire, that's for sure. Something wild."

Pausing to consider his last comment, Ruben began questioning about the doc.

"What is the doc like? Does he know what he's doing?"

Murdoch shrugged as he picked up his rifle, he hated Night, wanted to kill him; that could wait for later. He roughly took Night by the arm and lead him in the direction of the hospital.

"I dunno, it appears to be a lion. Lets go ask the drunk."

Murdoch lead Night into the hospital, the stench of blood hung in the air. He lead night to the crude O.R where he found Daveed over the corpse.

"How is it going?"

*********************************

Riley shrugged.

"Daveed....he is a good guy. He does take to the bottle more than he needs too which gets Murdoch pissed off. Doc is probably cutting up the body for examination right now...knowing Murdoch, he is right there with him."

Night's sense of smell was another thing that seemed to be more enhanced than any normal person with sight. He could smell the blood, and in a sense, it made him sick. He was a doctor of psychology and sociology, not of organic whatever.

He turned away, "I need some air." he muttered as he pulled free of Murdoch's grip. "Tell me later what your doctor finds out."

He departed the room and made his way outside, to stand in the harsh daylight, glad to be breathing the dry but fresh air.

Daveed looked up from the last organ he was examining and frowned as Murdoch charged in with the blind researcher that lived out at the nearby native encampment in tow. He knew of him but had never met him in person.

He barely had a chance to nod in welcome before the man rushed out. Speople couldn't take it. Shrugging Daveed turned to Murdoch

"How's it going? I'm just about finished here. Murdoch, I really really don't care wether you believe me or no, but no god -damned lion, no animal did this. And I won't lie for you."

Riley shrugged.

"Daveed....he is a good guy. He does take to the bottle more than he needs too which gets Murdoch pissed off. Doc is probably cutting up the body for examination right now...knowing Murdoch, he is right there with him."

Finishing his breakfast, Ruben pondered on what else he would do since all work had been banned for the day. Unfortunately there really wasn't much else to do here besides drink or work, and Ruben definitely wasn't in the mood to drink.

"Well, you want to drop by and see what the doc has figured out? I'd say he'd agree it wasn't a damn lion."

OOC: Really sorry about me not being here last few days. Had some computer problems. Should post in the afternoon.

Riley nodded to Ruben.

"Why not?"

The pair headed out of the mess tent and moved over to the hospital. Riley noticed a man standing outside of it, someone he hadn't seen around here. He walked up to the man, but the person didn't appear to see him.

"Excuse me..who are you?"

********************************

Murdoch looked at the bloodied corpse on the table. No lion attack he had heard of where the victim had been skinned and skull crushed. He looked up at Daveed.

"Then what the hell did it?"

Daveed looked at Murdoch, a glimmer of respect in his eyes.

"Murdoch, you aren't going to like this. The only animal that is this...disgusting...is man. We're the animals that do things like this...but before you go hareing off with some sort of vendetta against the natives...LISTEN UP"

He knew that Murdoch - and no few others here would be all to happy to blame the locals.

"How ever did this had access to knives that are of better quality than they have, stainless steel and razor sharp...and a few other things."

He indicated a series of deep slashes, slashes that looked like claws but with a cleanness to the wounds that no lion or tiger would have - indeed cuts not tearing.

"Murdoch, I think claws made those but claws fashioned of steel, and again razor sharp. There are no animal hairs, no fragments of claw"

He waited for Murdoch's reaction.

Murdoch apparently didn't hear Daveed as he stormed out of the room. He moved down the hall and burst through the front door. Riley looked up and immediatly backed up from Night, knowing what was going to happen.

Murdoch grabbed the blind man and flung him back against the hospital wall. Murdoch quickly avoided a swing from the man's stick and grabbed it before Night had a chance to swing it again. Murdoch pulled out the Ruger revolver and pressed it into Night's stomach.

"Alright you piece of shit...who killed that man in there? Which one of those darkies did it? Tell me or I will wipe out the whole god damn village."

Night turned his blind eyes to Murdoch, his expression on his face calm, collected. Murdoch was angry, and he had seen what different reactions would cause in those that were angry.

He took the most sensible option. He replied calmly, in an almost unnerving manner. "Murdoch, think about it. If those natives had done what you say they did, do you not think I would be able to tell? Keep in mind that I speak to each of them every day, and because of my situation-" he tapped the side of his face, near his eyes, "-I have an ability to tell if something is wrong, no matter how well they hide it. Their voices always tell more than they realize."

He paused to let that sink in for a moment, hearing the ragged breathing of Murdoch clearly. "And you have my word. None of them did it."

Daveed to a minute to tear off his gloves before storming after Murdoch. This time he would kill that peice of dren, and the hell with the consequences. The last thing they needed was genocide, or a war started

His Desert Eagle was in his hand and chambered, safety off as he burst through the door leading to the wide veranda

"Put the gun away you damned fool before I kill you and I have plenty of good reason to right now"

His voice was hard, calm and matter of fact. His eyes were empty and still. It was no bluff, just like the night before. Daveed just didn't care wether Murdoch lived or died. He cared about not starting a war...he just didn't realize that one already had

Night raised his hand to Daveed whom had stormed out. He distinctly heard the chamber of the Desert Eagle clicking into place, the sliding bullet now in the chamber. He spoke calmly still, a strange sight despite the guns suddenly being brought out to bear.

"No. Put your weapons away. Both of you. None of us know what is going on. Why not work together? Obviously, this attacker, whatever it may be, does not care for its victims' identities."

He turned his blind eyes back to Murdoch, "You're the commander here, are you not? I suggest some more self control. You don't want to appear weak before your boys, an unstable command? Soldiers do not follow half-cocked leaders. They follow those who use their heads, and do their best to ensure everyone survives."

His hand moved up to gently, but firmly push the gun to the side, away from endangering himself. "Put the gun away Murdoch or you'll do something you'll regret."

Ruben watched the confrontation between Murdoch, the blind man and the doctor carefully, waiting to see how things would unfold. Throwing knife already in hand, if things did get out of control Ruben would unleash his blade straight into the side of Murdoch's neck, disabling what he thought to be the most unstable factor of this problem.

Sliding alongside Riley, Ruben spoke in a hushed tone.

"What the hell is Murdoch's problem?"

Nagubuma had been driving a while now with fellow guards. Nothing had been sighted so far. After what Nagubuma had seen what had happened to that poor soul, he didn't want to find whatever did that. If it had been an animal, wouldn't it have carried the dead body away? The jeep was finally nearing the camp. Time to report to Mr. Murdoch.

Daveed nodded slightly, not bothered by the fact that Night wouldn't see it. He was uncanny enough that he'd probably hear him. He raised the barrel of the Desert Eagle to the corrugated tin roof over head, though dropping the barrel back on line with Murdoch would be less than a heart beat.

"Murdoch, listen to him and if you had bothered to listen to what I told you just a moment ago you wouldn't be in this position. No animal did this, and no native did this. I don't give a good god damn whether you like them or not - they didn't do it! Hells, if I didn't know better I'd say I did it...but seeing as I didn't...Look for some one with a doctors skills...or some one skilled in torture" His voice was low on the last, all but a venemous hiss.

"If you want to start a war, or try a little genocide, don't let me know or you'll find yourself in a shallow grave, and no words said over you"

Daveed turned away in disgust, heading back to finish up sealing the remains in a body bag. He had quite a number of the extremely heavy ripstop plastic, and he had a sick feeling that he was going to need more.

He realized that he was tightly clutching the fetish necklace the shaman had given him. Muttering under his breath he finished with the body and carried the awkward bag to the hospitals small cold storage. He'd wait to find out if the mine had a new supervisor or not before decideing what to do with the remains.

Riley looked over at Ruben, speaking in an equally low tone as the confrontation happened before them.

"To say the old man hates the natives and would love to kill them all...is to give him credit. He hates them...no one knows why. Best if we stay outta this."


Murdoch glared from Night to Daveed, not saying a word to them. When Daveed turned back into the hospital, he lowered his Ruger from Night. He looked over at Ruben and Riley.

"Go inside and help the doctor you lazy bastards."

"Yes sir." Riley said and quickly led Ruben into the hospital. He walked over to the cold storage and smiled at Daveed.

"Hey Doc...this is Ruben our new mechanic. Ruben, this is Daveed...our camp doctor."

************************

Murdoch looked at Night.

"Alright, if you are so smart...what did kill my man?"

Night listened as the others departed from the area, before hearing Murdoch's question. He spoke quietly, still as calm as ever. It was amazing to see this guy so calm in this escalating problem.

"As I said, none of us know. The best one who would know, or have any idea, is your medical doctor. I am only a doctor of psychology and sociology. However, it is the beliefs of the natives that the recent killings are from demons that reside deep in that mine your boys have been poking about in. I would suggest you move your entire camp away from this mine until this situation is taken care of."

Night moved away from Murdoch, before pausing and picking up his walking stick he felt hitting his boot. He turned back to Murdoch, "Perhaps your first action to be considered would be to search the surface area near the mine for tracks or any clues you might need to know?"

Murdoch laughed.

"I don't fucking believe this shit. You expect me to believe...demons are the cause of all this? Or some animal living inside the mine? My friend you must also be stupid. There is no fucking way an animal could be down there. You can use the elevator or use a very narrow staircase that can barely let a single man through."

He shook his head and looked at his operation. Night couldn't see his reactions but Murdoch still did a theatrical sweep of his arm over the buildings. He turned back to Night.

"Let me tell you something. This operation is underfunded little shit town. If it wasn't for the platnium, we wouldn't be here. We don't have the proper equipment to move everyone. We are staying here and operations continue as usual tomorrow. Demons...where the hell did you come from? Crazytown?"

Night sighed and shook his head, "You really are one to jump to conclusions, Mr. Murdoch. I never said I believed in demons. Only the natives. Get your facts straight."

He turned and walked away, disappearing from sight soon enough.

Daveed returned the smile as he closed the cold room door.

"Hey Riley..and pleased to meet you Ruben...and yes Murdoch is more than a little psychotic...but then again I probably am too. And Riley's being diplomatic. I'm what passes for a doctor in these parts...and the camp drunk."

He waited to see what the newcomer would make of that bald admission.

Ruben nodded in greeting to the Daveed and remained silent as he admitted to his addiction. That was one thing Ruben severely disliked. Addictions made one dependent on something, Ruben hated depending on anything but himself.

"I see. I hope you're not a bothersome drunk."

Whilst Ruben's statement was in a friendly manner, he was also giving a warning to the doctor.

"No not a bothersome drunk at all. I only drink to forget."

Daveed replied with bland good cheer. He frankly didn't care what Ruben thought of him. If he'd gone through what he had, he'd be drinking too. Though probably with far less guilt. Part of him knew that the guilt shouldn't be there, that even if he had been a fully trained physician, he still could not have saved his friends. Survivor guilt is relentless that way though.

"Now if you will excuse me, I think a long shower, clean clothes and a late lunch are in order."

Murdoch watched Night disappear from sight, the blind man seemed to have something to hide. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and headed back to his office, thinking over what Night had said to him.

*****************************************

"Alright, talk to you later Doc." Riley said with a smile as he lead Ruben back into the tiny lobby of the hospital. He scratched his chin and looked at the other man.

"Ruben, have you ever been down the mine?"

Ruben nodded farewell to Daveed as he and Riley departed the makeshift hospital. The doctor seemed to be a reasonable enough guy, perhaps a worthy ally if things got messy.

Strolling outside into the warming morning, Ruben turned to Riley in answer to his question.

"I've been down the elevator and a few meters from a couple of times when taking machines back and forth. Haven't been any further though."

Riley smiled at Ruben.

"Well, we got two options. First we go down into the lowest tunnel in the mine or we go to the native village and find that Night character. I prefer we down into the tunnel, the way Murdoch acted would be enough to piss of anyone.

Natives say that the demons come up from the deepest parts of the earth and have to be released. So...the mineshaft. If there is anything down there, we can find it. If we are going down in the mine, we need someone to help us. Uh....Joe...Joe Kerr. Go and get him and I will get the gear. Say we meet at the elevator in...twenty minutes?"

*********************************

The old man shuffled along the outskirts of his village. He saw Night's familiar figure trudging through the old riverbed. The old man moved quicker on his walking stick to catch up with him.

"What do dey say. Will dey leave? The demons will kill dem."

After Daveed had placed on clean clothes, something reached his ear. A slight scratching at his door, he opened it and the cheetah cub darted into the room, shivering violently. Before he could say anything the lights flickered briefly and a heavy sighing could be heard from inside the room.

Fast, heavy footsteps shuddered the bed and a gust of wind hit Daveed, like something had run past him. The sighing came again, along with a low growl from somewhere inside the hospital. A shadow past across the hall into another room, crashing and tearing sounds were heard from the inside.

Daveed pulled out his Desert Eagle and moved to the door of his room. The hallway lights were on, but a shadow covered the hall in darkness.

And the shadow seemed to be advancing...

Daveed snapped the big bore hand cannon into firing position and as the shadow closed and more destruction could be heard with the hospital, he said simply

"Fuck it"

and cracked off three rounds, dead into the center of mass of the shadow form

The shadow continued to advance, the first two bullets passing straight through it and smacking into the far wall. The third round also went through, but it seemed to yield results. A howl of pain come from somewhere in front of him, for a second he saw a dark animal shape inside the shadow tumble to the ground before disappering.

The shadow surged forward at Daveed, past straight past him and disapated. He looked at the floor in front of him, no blood, no tracks, nothing. Shouts were heard from the outside, lead by the familiar voice he had grown to know.

"What in God's name is going on here?" Murdoch bellowed.

The man stormed into the hospital, his eyes traveling over the destruction that had occured in a few short mintues. Glass blood bottles, medicine bottle, surgical instruments, chairs, a couch, tables, magizines, books, and other things were strewn and broken around the place.

Murdoch moved to the hall and looked at Daveed. The old man's face displaying confusion and uncertainty.

"What the hell happened doc?"

A cold drop of sweat rolled down Daveed face but he ignored it as he calmly pulled the mag from the Desert Eagle and unhurriedly replaced the rounds. He didn't think he could have answered Murdoch with out that extra bit of time.

"Some animal got into the hospital. Maybe it was following the blood scent...I don't know...I couldn't see it clear, the generator much be causeing brown outs, ...the lighting was so dim"

There wasn't the slightest hint of alcohol on his breath,

Marcus had long heard the old man shuffling toward him from the village of the natives. Once the inevitable question was launched, he shook his head negatively. "No, they do not care of the yours, nor anyone else's opinion in your village. I'm sorry. If there really are demons, then I say one thing only. Let those that did not listen, die for their foolishness. They deserve to die."

*******************
Later that night...

Night awoke within his hammock, having heard the distant sound of gunfire coming from the mining camp. As he turned his head to get a better fix on the gun shots, he heard another person walk close to him. He spoke quietly, "It has begun."

The wizened native nodded in agreement and began to chant a blessing of good fortune upon the village in a quiet voice. He departed from Night's side and soon other voices could be heard joining his own chants.

Night lay back down on his hammock, his acute hearing listening carefully to the night. He smiled.

Daveed holstered the big pistol and moved from the doorway of his private room into the hospital proper. The first treatment room was untouched, but the second of the three was a disaster area. Daveed repressed a groam of anger. The various things that had been destroyed were nearly irreplaceable out here in the wilds of Africa.

"My first two shots missed, you'll find the holes they made there, at the end of the hall. But the last round, the last round hit something...hit and hurt...I just never got a clear look at it."

He turned to glare at Murdoch, as his hand went of it's own accord to the necklace tht hung about his throat, the one the old shaman had given him when he first arrived

Nagabuma had just parked in the camp when the shots rang out.

Fuck!!! Men! Move out, sounded like it came from the hospital. Get there now!

Nagabuma raised his AK-47 to firing position and ran towards the hospital.

Murdoch looked at the damage, then back at Daveed and shook his head.

"Animal...you said you shot it but there is no blood...no tracks."

He scratched his head, none of this made sense. Daveed was sober, the place was a mess, Daveed's cheetah was too small to do something of this extent. The animal's body should be there, or at least a speck of blood. Nothing. Murdoch turned as Nagabuma stormed in, gun at the read.

"What have you found Nagabuma?"

Riley smiled at Ruben.

"Well, we got two options. First we go down into the lowest tunnel in the mine or we go to the native village and find that Night character. I prefer we down into the tunnel, the way Murdoch acted would be enough to piss of anyone.

Natives say that the demons come up from the deepest parts of the earth and have to be released. So...the mineshaft. If there is anything down there, we can find it. If we are going down in the mine, we need someone to help us. Uh....Joe...Joe Kerr. Go and get him and I will get the gear. Say we meet at the elevator in...twenty minutes?"

Ruben didn't like the sound of this demon in the mine business. Whilst he wasn't one to believe in the supernatural so easily, past experiences had given the man a certain wariness when it came to mention of such things. Judging by the average intelligence of the men here, Ruben was more inclined to give the words of the natives a hight weighting.

"I don't think we need to bother now. We've got a day off remember?"

At that point three gunshots were heard in the distance, the familiar bang of a firearm ringing through the air. Turning back towards the makeshift village, Ruben scowled.

"What's the bet that had something to do with the doc or Murdoch?"

Riley looked at Ruben, then back at the camp.

"If I took that bet I would be out a pay check. Come on...lets go see if the old man finally wacked the doc."

The pair jogged back to the hospital, where a crowd was already gathering. Riley squirmed his way through the mass of people and caught a wiff of blood and IV fluid. He managed to get to the front and walked into the hospital, gawking at the carnage.

"Looks like a tornado hit this place."

"Nothing, sir. Ran here when I heard the gunshots."

Nagabuma found himself relieved when there was no killer animal in the hospital.

Daveed shot every one a glare and set about cleaning up the devestation in theatment two. He'd radio a list of replacements needed in to 'civilization' in the morning. If he was lucky he'd get what he ordered in a couple of weeks. And he was becoming certain that they didn't have those two weeks.

"Every one out this isn't Madame Toussad's wax museum of horrors" He snarled

Murdoch left the doctor to his things, he didn't get what was going on. No one could really explain the deaths, no one could really explain what had torn through the hospital. Nothing made sense. The day dragged on, nervousness hung in the air as the mystery remained unsolved.

Murdoch looked out his window as the sun slowly sank in the sky. He clicked on the intercom.

"Attention all personal. No one is allowed to leave thier barracks tonight. I repeat, no one is to leave thier barracks tonight. Guards, stand guard and keep a watchful eye. We will pass out rifles for workers in the barracks."

********************************************

Riley looked at the AKS-74U that was shoved into his hand by a guard before the man left to pass out several more before going to a small rifle pit to wait and see what would happen. Riley pulled out the magizine, made sure it was full and put it back in.

He turned off the lights in his room and went over to the window and opened it. Sticking out the muzzle brake out the window, he waited calmly to see if anything would pop up.

When the sun finally set, darkness took over the mine and the earth. Riley looked across the riverbed and saw a fire leap from the village, he also swore he heard chanting.

As a wind came into the camp, it sounded to Riley like an animal sighing...

Daveed had cleaned up the mess and restocked from his supply room as best he could. He finished before darkness fell, but only just. There was no way he was going to the dining hall this night so he fixed him and the still restless cub some cold soup - it was just too hot for cooking he felt despite the fact that his window unit was working- and some more potted meat sandwiches. The cub crawled into his lap once he finished eating, but that didn't bother Daveed.

He was glad for the companionship as he settled down to read the one thing in his library that might be of some help in the situation. The latest Preston and Child collaboration 'Brimstone'.

The night slowly drug on, nothing was happening. Across the dead river bed, the fire in the middle of the native camp was still high and burned brightly. Riley yawned, craving a cigarette. He placed one in his mouth, but didn't light it, knowing Murdoch would have his ass if he did. He fingered the selector switch on the AKS, waiting for something to happen.

No one seemed to be paying attention as the light from the stars and moon in the sky were being covered up, but there were no clouds in the sky.

****************************************

Across the river, the natives still danced and chanted for protection from the evil spirits. The old man leaned on his stick, mumbling prayers and incantations, hoping his gods would hear his cry. The darkness seemed concentrated on the mining camp, the village still seemed to be in the light.

The old man turned and his eyes widden as he turned to Night's hut.

As Night lay on his hammock, he couldn't see his hut was slowly growing darker, evolped in shadow. He heard a crunching sound above him and some thatch fell on his face.

What he couldn't see was part of the roof slowly peeled back and a black object floated into the hut...

Night awoke with a startle as he felt the air around him get cold...very cold, and very quickly. He heard breathing nearby, but it was raspy and almost metallic in its sound. He dared not move, but did a quick mental check as to where his staff was. He swallowed, feeling the sweat rising to his skin.

"Who's there?" he asked quietly, almost wishing he were back in the States, in his secure home, away from the dangers of the world out here. He suddenly exploded from his hammock, and ran as fast as he could toward the direction of the village center. His orientation with the surrounding area however was slightly off in his haste and he felt the sharp rap of wood upon his face as he smacked into a pole. Cursing aloud, he stumbled past it, screaming for help.

The old man ran up to Night and grabbed him. "Kome...kome...we must go now!"

The old man lead him to the village center where more wood was put on the fire, sending it higher into the sky. Night's hut began to collapse, something inside of it was tearing it apart from the inside out. The warriors grabbed thier spears and shields and formed a tiny phalanx. A low grunting, sighing, and moan sound came around the whole of the settlement.

Shadow slowly creeped into the village, the people chanted and the warriors banged thier shields with thier spears. A single warrior on the flank of the phalanx screamed as he was suddenly lifted off his feet and disappered in a swirl of shadow and dust. His screams could be heard far off, followed by the crunching of bone.

Shadow gently rolled into the village, then rolled out. Dark, animal like figures moved through it; the sighing sound was still heard. The sigh switched to a growl as a shape moved towards a hut. A hunter hurtled a spear at the form, only to have it go straight through the figure and smash into the the mud side of the hut.

The old man turned to Night and shifted the man in the direction of the mining camp. He stepped in front of Night and looked at the blind man.

"Run! Run! Warn them! Run straight and don't stop for anything! Just...."

The old man's voice was cut off something warm splattered against Night's face. Screams of women and children were heard from behind as the warriors tried to hold off the darkness.

Behind Night, the sighing grew louder...

****************************************

Riley looked up towards the native camp from his window. The fuck is going on over there? Some kind of orge? Riley moved from his window and headed outside to the porch of his barracks. Something was not right.

Nagabuma raised from his sleep as he heard the screams. It wasn't his shift, but he instinctivly got his AK-47.

What the fuck is going on down there?!?

He began to run from barrack to barrack, outpost to outpost in the camp.

Raise the alarm! All security personnel are to go to defensive positions positions. Prepare for possible attack from natives.

Daveed had fallen asleep, book and cub in his lap. Awoken by the cheetahs frantic chirupping, and the screams carried by the night from the village to the mining camp. He soothed the panicked animal as best possible, then took it to the heavy crate that often acted as its den. Once it had burrowed under the heavy blanket he checked his weapons, and then made a walk through of the hospital

Satisfied that all the doors and windows were locked he went to the hopsitals generator. He'd learned enough to make sure that the important pieces were working. He finished and made sure that the door to the generator room was bolted and locked. Then he went to the waiting room of the hospital, making sure that all the lights were on, in side and out. It was going to be a long night

Terrified more by the fact that his friend had died obviously, and obviously no longer requiring the blood that coated his face, Night ran. He ran fast, and he ran hard.

He felt the cold breath of death surrounding him, until he no longer felt the warmth of the campfire behind him. His feet began to tread uneven ground, but he kept going. He just kept running, his hands outstretched in front of him. He had lost his staff some time back, probably lying somewhere in the village, deprived of its owner.

He screamed out aloud for the mining group to awaken as he ran blindly.

Murdoch listened to the screams carried by the wind. A FAMAE S.A.F submachine slung over one shoulder, he listened carefully. It was screaming, but no war chants. He pulled out a pair of night vision goggles and looked at Night running across the riverbed, something was definatly wrong. He panned the village, the warriors seemed to be doing something, looked like they were fighting some kind of wild animal. He turned to Night and spotted another figure running towards him.

********************************************

Riley ran like hell towards the dark shape running to him. He could tell by the way the man stumbled a few times and by the voice it had to be Night. Riley unslung his rifle and grasped it in one hand as he grabbed Night's shoulder by the other.

"Come on doc."

He led the blind man as fast as he could the rest of the way. Every time he turned around, he saw dark shapes moving behind them and he heard a sighing sound. The sound fadded as they drew nearer to the camp and the shapes disappeared.

The guards in thier pits and on the rooftops aimed thier rifles at the men till they saw they were not natives. Riley held onto Night as he drew nearer to the hospital. As they got in the lights, he noticed the blind man's face was covered in blood.

"Jesus man, lets get you to Daveed."

Riley ran up to the hospital door and placed Night against the outside wall. Riely banged on the door with his rifle butt.

"Daveed! Daveed! Dr. Night is fucked up! Unlock the damn door."

Daveed sprang up as Riley pounded on the main doors, and hurried over. hastily he unlocked the door and threw it wide.

"Here bring him in.." He stopped, and simply stepped out and scooped Night up.

"Lock the door back" He called over his shoulder as he carried Night into treatment room one. Carefully he laid the blood splattered man down and began checking him over

"What happend Night, where do you hurt?"

Night was shaking violently, his body racing with the adrenaline. As they struggled to keep him down on the table, he kept fighting back, screaming, "They everywhere! Everywhere! I...I felt them...they're like ghosts...so....they're everwhere! They killed him. I know they did...I can taste his blood!"

He screamed aloud again, the fear overtaking him as he leapt free of the table, heading to the corner of the room, "They going to kill us all!"

His blind eyes darted about the room, as if he could see the ones that terrified him so.

"Close the doors! Don't let anyone in!" he screamed as he knocked over a tray with items atop it. He slid down the wall and reached out, his fingers grasping a surgical knife near him, his only defense against...them...

Daveed attempted to hold Night down but the man was possessed with hysterical strength and threw him off. He was screaming almost unintelligably, about ghosts, and blood and death. Night ended up in a corner after sending the surgical tray flying, a knife being waved frantically before him

Daveed moved soundlessly to as close as he could, and lunged for the knife, snatching it from Nights hand and tossing it away

"Night, you're safe, we won't let anything get you"

He spoke soothingly as he moved to get the younger man out of the corner.

"Come on Night, let me check you over"

Marcus Night felt Daveed's hands trying to calm him down, but he just wouldn't listen. With surprising strength, he gripped Daveed's shoulders and thrust him to the ground, climbing atop him and clenching his shirt with balled fists.

"They're going to kill us, you goddamn assholes!" he cried, "They don't give a fuck who they're killing!"

"Okay, Night, Okay, I believe you. However I can't stop them, we can't stop them if you're trying to break my face. Get a grip"

Daveed was big enough and strong enough that with little trouble he managed to lift Night aside, and stand up.

"Calm down Night. We have to work together, so calm down" He shook Night lightly trying to make sure that he got through to the other man

Night just flailed harder, paniced and unlistening. His wild blows struck Daveed several times in the face, and at last Daveed was forced to knock the smaller man unconscious. Ignoring the fact that one eye was swelling closed Daveed picked Night up and laid him back on the exam table

He then ascertained that Night, other than the cuts he inflicted on himself when he grabbed the scalpel earlier, a few thorn punctures and scrapes on his legs, was unharmed

All the commotion outside snapped Ruben back to a keen awareness. He'd taken the lack of work as an oppurtunity to contemplate the future, considering what he would do when he left his place with all the riches he'd collected. Of course such pleasant thoughts had to be disturbed by the wild screams of someone.

Getting to his feet, Ruben holstered his personal deage and picked up the FN-P90 that camp guards had issued him. By the sounds of the screaming things weren't going too good and Ruben figured he'd have a better chance of surviving if he wasn't the only man bearing weapons around. Clip in place and safety off, Ruben exited his shack to see Riley taking the blind man into the hospital.

Figuring he had no better place to go, Ruben made a dash for the hospital, making it inside without any issues. Booted footsteps echoed around the corridor as Ruben made his way towards other voices.

"Hey guys. What's the problem?"

"In here" Daveeds voiced called. "And make sure the damned doors are locked behind you!"

Daveed readied an injection of valliun, just a minimal one, and slid the needle home in the muscles of Night's upper arm. That done he set about cleaning the thorns from the mans legs and the blood, the old witchdoctors blood, if Night were correct, from his face. The cuts from the scalpel he closed with steristrips.

"He says, and I think I believe him, that something has slaughtered the native village. He says it devils. I say it sure sounds like the work of the worst devils I know, humans"

Daveed wrapped Night in a heavy blaneket and carried him to the spare bedroom in his private quarters. He left the exhausted man to sleep, leaving the door open so he could hear any cries. He washed his own face and inspected the black eye that Night had unwhittingly given him.

Riley locked the door behind Ruben and listened to Daveed. He gave a nod, sounds of screaming still off in the distance.

"Humans? Probably another tribe, all of our guys are accounted for." Riley cocked his head. "Listen."

There was nothing, no more screams, no more shouts. Riley moved to the door and looked out across the riverbed, he couldn't see much detail at the village, he could see a few dark shapes lying on the ground. Something had hit them hard and had killed most, if not all the village.

**************************************

Murdoch clutched his FAMAE as he listened to the silence, it was too quiet. A soft wind blew into camp, tossing some dust and sand over the guards in thier pits. Something was very wrong and it gave him a cold shiver, or it was just the wind. He looked around and didn't see anything, come tomorrow, he would get a group together to investigate the carnage.

***************************************

Riley drummed his fingers against the window of the hospital. Ten minutes had passed since the noise stopped and nothing had happened. The lights flickered in the hospital, probably the generator was having problems. When he turned from the window and looked at Daveed and Ruben, he didn't see a dark shape move past the window.

"The hell is going on out there man? The fuck is killing everyone? Hold it...listen."

There was silence in the building, just silence for a few moments before they heard it.

Inside and outside, everyone heard something that sounded like an animal sighing...

Daveed's head jerked sharply, and he held up a hand for silence

"That sound! ....Did you hear it ?" He asked after a momnet. "I heard it last this evening when the hospital was trashed."

He flicked the safety off the calico and set it for three round burst. He frowned as the lights flickered again.

"I checked the generator not two hours ago."

Riley tightened his grip on his rifle as he listened to the sound outside. The roof moaned and a dent appeared as something landed on it. Riley flicked the selector switch to full automatic as he aimed at the spot. The lights began to flicker more rapidly now, the sighing sound grew louder and the tearing of metal was heard at the far side of the hospital.

Then, it abruptly stopped. The sighing, the flickering, the tearing.

Riley relaxed and lowered his rifle. "Well, looks like nothing is gonna happen."

At that moment, the lights shut off, a great howl rocked the room, and the front doors burst open, sending glass shards and splinters into the room. A dark shadow burst into the room knocking Riley on the ground. The shadow smashed everything in the room before shooting up through the roof, tearing away the metal.

Riley brought up his rifle and squeezed the trigger, spraying the roof, hoping to hit something. The thirty round magizine quickly went dry and Riley lowered the weapon.

He looked around the room, the sighing was gone, silence was the only thing he heard.

"What the fuck was that?"

Daveed didn't even have time to react, as the front door was assaulted, but he fired a large portion of the fifty round mag of the Calico at what ever it was that went out the roof.

He was completely uncertain if he hit anything at all, as rattled as he was. He jumped when the lights returned unexpectedly, far brighter than normal.

"God damnit! This is just too fucking much!" He cursed as he looked about his trashed waiting room, before hurrying to check in on Night. None of the rending sounds had come from there but he still wanted to check on his patient.

Murdoch looked at the hospital, something had assaulted it and something had escaped plently of bullets chasing it. He drummed on his machine-pistol when he heard the sighing. A dark shape was slowly moving across the roof of one of the buildings. He lifted his gun up along with the guards next to him.

His first burst missed the thing, but the chatter from the AKs near him got a howl and the thing sprinted off the roof and charged through the streets of the camp.

Soon, others quickly joined in firing at the thing.

Daveed found himself shaking. He had no idea what was attacking them, for it certainly was not just wandering the camp for fun and games. And despite his words he was seriously beginning to doubt that what ever it was, it wasn't human.

He went in to the room where he'd put Night. The valium was just a sedative and the dose was a mild one. He didn't need the blind man waking up in a panic. Daveed had not wanted a drink so bad in nearly a year.From somewhere deep inside however he found the substance to not go and pull out the bottle.

Nagubuma watched as he saw a black shadow thing tear down one of the streets in the camp.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING!!!

Nagubuma immeadiatly opened fire with his AK-47, trying to find safety and the others.

Ruben was quite unnerved by this experience. It wasn't the fact that they were dealing with somethin unnatural as the young man had gone through supernatural situations on a few occassions before. The issue with this creature was their lack of knowledge. At least in America and The Golden Simatar, Ruben had known they were dealing with zombie like creatures and a simple bullet to the head would end things. So far bullets had proved ineffective here.

Getting up once again, Ruben followed Daveed yet remained silent.

Riley fired from the a hospital window at anothe dark shape moving on the roofs. Several, long minutes of non-stop gun fire tore through the night until the dark shapes left. He ejected the magizine and put another in. Silence continued for another half an hour, it was two hours before dawn.

Riley looked at a guard across the street get from his position and move towards the hospital, a slight limp in his walk. The man started to shout in Afrikaans and Riley looked up to see a black shape on the roof behind him.

"GO BACK YOU STUPID...!"

There was no time for the man to react, his scream punched through the night like an ice pick. His skin seemed to be peeling off his body, blood splattering to the ground before the shape jumped on the man. Guns opened fire again, but the screams continued as the shadow disappeared.

Riley pulled out a flash light and shined it on the spot. The dry ground was damp with blood, a heap of instines, skin, and uniform were at the center of the pile. Riley turned and vomited on the floor and shut off the flash light.

He pulled out his radio and called Nagubuma.

"Hey Thomas. You hit the damn thing or things when they were running around man?"

Daveed hesitated a stride as gun fire and fresh screams came from elsewhere in the camp- and too close to the hopsital for comfort. He shook his head, took a deep breath and continued in to his spare bedroom. He was not happy to see Night still out of it. The researcher should have come around by now, especially with the uproar in the camp. He looked at Ruben following silently along behind him.

"Ruben, I'm getting Night up to moving then I for one am getting a few essential, then leaving. I don't think bullets are going to stop what ever it is."

Unconsciously his hand played with the necklace that the shaman had given him

He went to Night's side and gave him a firm but gentle shake, and spoke in his most reassureing voice

"Night, come on Night wake out of it"

Night opened his eyes groggily, looking blindly up at Daveed.

"Wh..what..." he stammered as he slowly put the pieces together. Suddenly, he opened his eyes widely, quickly becoming full of fear. He began to tremble a bit as he shook his head, trying to shake away the fearsome memories of the...beasts.

"We have to get out of here!" he cried softly as his hands felt the area around him, touching upon Daveed's boot momentarily. Slowly he stood, still a bit unsteady on his feet.

Daveed was glad that Night was calmer than before and far more rational

"I agree. But you need to rest a bit more while I get some supplies together...and some more clothes for you. Mine won't fit, but we've got plenty of surgical scrub sets that will."

He urged Night to sit back down on the bed and turned to Ruben

"You are welcome to come with. I intend to get a jeep and leave in about thirty minutes."

"HELL YES I HAVE BEEN HITTING THEM!!!! I AM TRYING TO FALL BACK AND REGROUP!!! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!!!"

Nagubuma screamed this as he still fired at the shadows, those demons just ripping men apart. They needed to get away from there.

"Agreed man." Riley said into the walkie-talkie.

He had no idea what the hell was going one...all he knew was that men were being torn to shreds around him. The next thing that happened was like a haze. The sky turned a orange and blood red color from a massive explosion the other side of the camp. Fire reached up and licked the dark sky. Riley felt the blast of heat hit him after a few seconds.

During the commotion, Murdoch looked towards the explosion and didn't see the shape coming from behind. When he turned, the last thing he saw was a spike plunging into his face. The sighing overtook the sound of the explosion and the dark shapes and the corpses of the dead disappered.

After several minutes, silence filled the air. Only the crackling of the fire from the explosion was audible.

Riley looked up, the sky was brightening, dawn was coming. He ran through the camp, past deep crimson pools to the motor pool. He crumpled to his knees and started to cry.

The two Mi-17 helicopters were both up in flames and the gasoline storage made one last explosion before engulfing the Land Rovers and Jeeps.

He looked at Ruben following silently along behind him.

"Ruben, I'm getting Night up to moving then I for one am getting a few essential, then leaving. I don't think bullets are going to stop what ever it is."

Ruben completely agreed with Night's idea. There was some freaky shit occuring around here and Ruben didn't want to hang around and see anymore of it. Checking his weapon, Ruben moved back towards the door.

"Sounds good to me. I'll just grab some of my gear and be back in a sec."

Without another word Ruben charged out of the hospital, eyes immediately darting around the camp in case there was a nearby threat. As he progressed towards his own little run down shack, a massive explosion rocked the earth, causing Ruben to stumble slightly, only catching himself upon the wall of his shack. Not taking the time to notice what had exploded, Ruben plunged into the darkness of his dwelling and activated a flash light, allowing him to navigate through the mess.

There were very few things Ruben actually needed to get. In fact all of it could fit inside a medium sized backpack. Obviously in a rush, Ruben wrenched open the secret compartment and stashed all his hoarded gold and platinum into the backpack, along with a desert eagle, ammunition and a few other personal effects. A few more minutes of rummaging around his shack had resulted in the backpack being filled. Satisfied that he had everything, Ruben moved towards a closet and plunged his empty hand inside until his hand clasped a long object and withdrew it. A black automatic shotgun filled his grip, waiting for the chance to unleash devastation upon anything that challenged it.

With all his necessary gear in hand, Ruben burst through the door of his shack once again and made the quick job back towards the hospital.

Daveed darted into the hopsital section of the building, not stopping to curse as the massive explosion shook the building. He could make a good guess as to what had gone up. He grabbed handfulls of the medical supplies that he thought they'd need, chooseing carefully as he went, filling the back pack full. He padded the contents with scrub pants and tops - extra clothing that could be used for bandaging material. Surgical kit, extra scalpel blades, suture kit, antibiotics, analgesics, IV kits, wound flush and pack, roll gauze, hypodermics, a variety of medications, and antivenems. GThe back pack would be heavy but he felt that Night could carry it, and weighed less than the one he would fill with food and water - the one that he would carry.

"Here, Night, put these on and double up on the socks, we may have to walk out if that explosion was what I think it was. I'm still working on getting gear together, so it will be a few minutes more"

He handed the blind man a set of heavy cotton surgical scrubs, drawstring pants and pull over top in drab blue grey, and double pairs of heavy socks. He set Night's boots down near by then headed for his personal supply closet. He could see that false dawn had come and that it would be light in an hour.

"Riley" He called out as Riley returned to the hospital. " Could you go check to see if that was all our transport blowing up. I think that Nagubuma parked a jeep near the main gate earlier so it should still be there. If it did that makes getting out of here easier, otherwise we'll have to walk out"

Night took the backpack and shouldered it, adjusting the straps. He turned his head this way and that, to keep his bearings on the others' positions. He spoke to Daveed.

"Give me a staff, a blade, something I can use that does not require the use of eyesight. Do not leave me with nothing to defend myself."

If Night's eyes could reflect his sudden turnabout of character, it was seen now. It was not one of unrelenting courage. Such did not exist. Fear was always present, in some form or another. He now fought to survive against a foe none of them understood. He only wished to live.

Riley nodded and headed towards the main gate. He avoided going near the massive inferno as much as he could. He smiled as he found the jeep sitting near some brush. He climbed in and turned the key. The engine groaned in protest but Riley kept gunning it for another five minutes before it sprung into life. He looked at the tank, less than a quarter. Much of the fuel supply was up in flames, so they would have to look around for some more.

He started to drive back to the hospital when something smashed into the windshield. Riley blindly spun the wheel and the jeep smashed head first into the muntions shack, crunching in much of the engine. After the shock wore off he grabbed his rifle from the back of the jeep and climbed out. He slunk to the back of the jeep and peered around the corner, nothing spare for miles of grassland. He stood and walked to see what was in the windshield.

"Oh Christ."

Riley reappeared in the hospital and put a spear on the table.

"That went through the jeep windshield. And of course being shocked I crashed it. But...this shows some natives survived...and they are pissed."

"Spear...Good...Night you have a staff now." Daveed noted as he filled another water jug from the tap and added a dose of purifier. He looked over at Riley who seemed mostly uninjured from the accident

"Of course you crashed it" His tone held no sympathy what so ever, and a fair amount of cold anger "but how badly? Does it still run?"

He began filling another jug with water after sealing the first

"Ruben, could you go with Riley and see what the jeeps condition is?"

OC: wow, ive been gone for a long time lol. sry i havnt posted in so friggin long, i went to england for a while lol. my friend was usin this nation but didnt have the link to this RP, but im back. if thats ok w/ you guys of course. if not, ill delete this post.

IC: Matthew's eyes snapped open. Even in the cleaning closet, he could hear gun shots. He had passed out from the smell of the chemicals and had been to heavily sedated to notice the sounds before. He heard some faint screaming, more gun shots, more screaming.

He climbed to his feet, reached under his bed and grabbed his AK along with all of his extra ammo. He opened the door of his closet and proceded to sprint outside. He burst outside from the mess hall to see several men grouped around a jeep that looked fairly damaged.

He started to run over to them...

ooc: good 2 c u again Khiraebanaa.

Riley nodded to Daveed and left with Ruben to the jeep. The front end of the jeep was crunched inward. Riley pried open the hood and gave a faint smile.

"Engine seems is okay Ruben. We should be able to get out."

Riley got down and looked under the vehicle. The transmission was knocked on the ground, knocked loose by the impact. Riley climbed up and picked up AK-74.

"Give me ten minutes to fetch some tools so we can fix the transmission."

Riley headed off towards the destoryed hanger, hoping a tool or two would be lying around. As Ruben watched him go, he heard a voice behind him.

"Hello there mother fucker."

When Ruben turned around, he stood facing Colonel Sean Merrin; the man who had gone insane and tried to kill him back in the Untied States. Only thing was, Merrin had been killed by zombies.

"Surpised to see me eh? I have been rotting away, bidding my time...for you at least. I have seen one of the old gang...remember that little punk Colin? I saw him last week...little bastard fell off a ladder and broke his neck when he saw me. Must of been suprised. You will not make it out of here Ruben."

As the figure talked, the flesh and clothes were slowly decaying away, revealing finally a corpse, its left eye hanging out and bloody flesh hanging from its bones.

"You killed me Ruben, now I will kill you. Nice little show last night wouldn't you say? They do thier work just fine. I have waited a long time for this Ruben...when you are lying on the ground in a bloody heap, that is when I will come. Should of just shot you and that bitch Rikan back in Washington...but I will get her after I finish with you and your friends. You won't make five miles outside of this camp. Still don't think I am real eh? Try this."

The corpse figure of Merrin spat, spending blood onto Ruben's face. The few muscles remaining on the jaw tightened. It said one more thing before vanishing in a split second. "See you soon in hell Ruben, we got a room waiting for you."

"Ruben." Riley's voice came from behind. Riley looked past Ruben, he didn't see anything, not blood on Ruben's face, no corpse standing on the burnt earth. Riley looked at Ruben, confused on what was troubling the man.

It was then he saw Matthew running from the mess hall. Riley stepped around Ruben, but the man stared blankly into thin air. Riley ran over to Matthew.

"Jesus Christ man...thought you were killed. Come on...we gotta get this jeep fixed so we can get the fuck outta here."

Nagubuma's only thoughts were of getting out of this hell hole. He decided he might take the jeep and get out while he still could. Then he saw the jeep.

"What the fuck happened to it?"

Night took the spear, running his hand over the blade. It was sharp and was mounted on a strong wooden staff. Satisfied, he followed the others to the jeep. After hearing the report on the jeep's condition, he immediately got into the front passenger seat.

"Come on...we've got to get out of here."

Then as he sat there, he thought something else. "I think we should go find the natives...yes, they're pissed, but they're our best chance to get away from here as fast as we can."

Daveed carrried out the first of the packs and set them besides the jeep.

"We'll get going Night as soon as we have enough supplies"

He looked at Riley

"How much gas does it have?" He asked and on hearing that it was only a quarter, turned to Nagubuma and Matthew

"There are four five gallon cans of gas in the hopsitals generator room. Why don't you go get them while I get the rest of the supplies."

[i]He headed back for the rest of the supplies and his cheetah cub. MRE's more jugs of water, camping supplies, a long coil of good rope, - he intended to make sure the jeep was stuffed full, and if they had to abandon stuff along the way, then so be it.

Ruben couldn't believe what he was seeing. Merrin had died over a year ago, back in America. The stupid bastard had crossed everyone and he'd certainly paid the price for it at Rikan's hands. Stepping back slightly, Ruben remained silent as the supposed corpse waffled on about some revenge.

There was a certain feeling that all this was just in his head. At that point Merrin launched a ball of phlem and blood onto Ruben's unshaven face. Stumbling backwards he brought up a hand to wipe his face clean whilst raising his weapon. Within a blink Merrin was gone, Rilely was back and there seemed to be no blood upon him at all. More than a little disturbed, Ruben remained silent but kept his eyes darting all over the place, waiting for a chance to shoot Merrin if he returned.

Riley crawled under the jeep and worked frantically to repair it. Grease was quickly coating his arms as he struggled to get the transmission back and in working order. Things progessed quickly and he was finished far sooner than he had thought.

The mechanic climbed out from under the Jeep, a satisfied look on his face.

"Another job well done."

At that moment, a flurry of spears rocketed out of the bush, many landing in the dirt behind them, but a few tore through the Jeep's canvas top and punctered the seats. Riley hit the dirt and fired a burst into the bush from his AK.

"Fucking niggers. They are out there, we ain't got a chance against them. The ammuntion dump was near the hangers and went up in flames."

"I guess we should try to walk it then. We can take on some starving Kaffers. How close is the nearest point of civilization?"

"200 miles" Daveed replied as he came back with the next load last of the supplies "And we won't walk it unless we have to. We've got gas enough - if you and Matthew will go get it while I get the last load"

He pulled out the spears that pierced the canvas top of the jeep and the seats., tucking them in the cargo area along with the rest of the supplies.

"Spears take time to make and they don't have an unlimited supply. Night, why don't you try talking some sense into them"

He looked about - it would be sunrise any minute, and he only had one more load. The jeep would be cramped, but as he had decided earlier, better to have to throw it away than not have it in the first place. and twenty gallons of gas would get them the two hundred miles. He had another thought and pulled Ruben and Riley aside, out of the others earshot.


"Riley, guard the jeep, I don't trust the others. Ruben, take Nagubuma, and go blow the safe. Pull out a pound of platinum flake and nugget for each of us then lets get the hell out of here....oh and dump as much dynamite down that damn mineshaft as you can how about aswell, leave with a big boom"

OC: glad to be back

IC:

Matthew stood listening, absorbing the situation. It seemed as though, something, was killing everyone it could get its hands (he assumed) on.

Apparantly it was time to leave, and he needed to go get the gas.

With a slight sigh, he turned his AK's safety off, and proceded to retrive the much needed fuel. He stopped after one stride as a revealtion hit him.

"Sir, if we need weapons...I've got a sizable stash of chemical ones. Want me to get 'em?"

OOC: It was the fuel storage that blew up - the jeep crunched the corner of the munitions shack

****************************************

Daveed reactions was automatic "Don't call me sir, I work for a living" Then he smiled evilly

"That sounds like an excellent idea Matthew. The more the merrier to blow the hell out of that mine shaft. I'll get the gas."

Riley nodded and tightened his grip on his rifle. As he turned back to the jeep, something smacked the earth in front of him. He looked down to see a blackish dot on the ground. He looked up into the slowly darkening sky. Oh Christ. He looked at everyone.

"I...I think the rainy season might be starting."

As the sky darkened more and thunder rolled, Riley looked across to the mineshaft, nothing. He smiled and looked away, when he turned back he saw darkness suddenly moving towards them. A great black shadown hanging low to the ground.

Riley slowly inched back from the Jeep as he heard the sighing...

Ruben nodded and turned to Nagubuma, still very edgy from his encounter with Merrin.

"Come on, let's get this over and done with quick. There is something very wrong with this place and I don't want to hang around."

Checking his weapon once again, Ruben headed towards the building containing the safe.

Daveed followed Riley's frightened look and saw the roiling darkness approaching, a darkness that had nothing to doo with the gathering clouds that heralded the approach of rain as they stole the weak morning light.

He jumped in the jeep, drivers spot, shouting so all could hear him "I'm moving the jeep next to the hospital. Ruben, get inside now, the damn things are coming back. Come on Riley!"

With a clash of gears he put the jeep into drive and covered the hundred yards to the hospital in just seconds.

"Night, come on back inside the hospital, now! Every one take cover damn it!"

He had changed out magazines on the calico earlier, reloading the fifty round mag, and putting the hundred round on the carbine instead. He pulled it up from where it hung on it's sling at his side, ready to fire on the closeing shadows.

"Yeah, I certainly am for getting the hell out of this hell-hole. Now, what will we be doing?"

Not even bothering to think about the order, Ruben jumped into the vehicle and rest his weapon over the side of the car. It might be shadow but there was still a chance that whatever was inside could bleed. And so he unleashed a few bursts from his P90.

As Riley climbed out of the Jeep, the sighing and thunder grew louder. He looked over at the administration building and saw a figure at a window.

"Daveed, I'll be back in a minute."

Riley made a dash for the building and entered as rain began to pour outside. He checked the magizine for the AK-74, set it to semi-automatic, and slowly walked into the front office. The desks, cabinets, and chairs were broken and scattered. Blood was smeared on the walls, bullet holes on the ceiling and floor, and loose paper fluttered around.

He slowly made his way up to the second floor, the stairs were slick with blood and he slipped a few times. Riley's heart pounded in his chest, knowing some demon from the past was out there. He opened the door to Murdoch's office and found a native warrior standing there. The man was in his mid-twenties, white and red paint covered his body, a shield made from cow hide was in his left hand and spear was in his right.

Both stood there for several seconds, staring at each other. The warrior let out a cry and Riley fired as quickly as he could pulled the trigger. The warrior tumbled back as the bullets smashed into his flesh, sending rivers of blood cascading to the floor. Riley brought his gun up and fired one last shot, blowing away half of the man's front skull, sending crimson blood and gore splattering against a map of the area on the wall.

Riley moved to the window and looked down at the hospital. "Oh my God."

The darkness engulfed the hospital and inside, the men's ears were filled with the sighing...

Nagubuma looked back at the hospital.

"Holy fucking shit! LETS GET MOVING!"

Matthew sprinted back to the mess hall, threw his shoulder against the door and broke it in. He kept running down the hallways until he reached his closet. He fired four shots into the lock and opened the door. Reaching under his bed, he felt around for his box of chemicals and finding it, pulled it out, carefully sealed the lid with some duck tape, tucked the box under his arm and ran out, grabbing a large box of matches on the way.

He burst outside again, just in time to see everyone heading to the hospital as fast as they could.

Running over, careful not to drop his precious box, he heard a strange sound.
It sounding like...wind...odd.

He kept running.

The sighing of the wind got louder.

Just out of instinct, he looked over his shoulder and saw...something. It looked like a small dark cloud. A shadow. He stopped as it came nearer.

When it was around six feet away from him, it suddenly lunged straight at him, closing the few feet in a tenth of a second. Jumping to his left, he brought up his AK and fired the entire clip into this...thing.

Night heard the fearsome sighing, his acute hearing picking it up before the others did. As they were realizing what it was, he was gone already, running as fast as he could. Unfortunately, blindness had its inhibitions, and he was reminded with a solid thwack of the wall in front of him. He stumbled back in a moment of daze, groaning over his injured face. However, the sighing returned him to his original panic once more, and he felt the wall quickly until he opened the door and darted inside. At least here, he remembered his mental map of the place, the hospital outlined by the number of footsteps from the front door.

Marcus Night simply ran.

The Calico was no submachine gun, it had no full automatic, but it did hold a hundred rouns, and it had three round burst. David was practised with it and was a decent if not exceptional marksman. As the roiling shadow closed with the hospital he had most of the jeep to barriacade and protect him. He didn't hesitate, but raised the Calico and began firing into the shadow steadily, trying hard to discern if there were individual shapes with in the darkeness

Riley heard the gunfire from just outside the office. He ran downstairs, sweat pouring from his face. He opened the front door a few inches and stared out, seeing Matthew fire at one of the shadows. The shadow seemed to drift up to a rooftop as several more began to move towards Matthew. Riley burst out into the rain and grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him back into the office. Riley saw Matthew was holding some box tightly to his body, what was inside was the least of his concerns.

The door shuddered and roaring came from the other side. Riley fired a shot through the door and a grunt answered him. The door continued to shudder as something pounded it from the outside. Splinters shot out as something made a hole in the wall. All Riley saw for that split second was a black, clawed foot before it disappeared.

Riley looked at Matthew.

"Got any bright ideas?"

Matthew was shaking, barely holding onto the box. He set it down, knowing that if he droped it, nasty things would happen.

That had been the most terrifying moment of his life. Thoughts raced through his head. What ended up coming out was "What the fuck was that thing?!"

It had been a shadow, there, but not there. He hoped Riley had some answers.

Night felt his way to a closet and locked himself in there. Fear riddled his every thought, his every move.

For now, survival was all he cared about.

"We're gonna die..." he murmured to himself softly while crouched down at the bottom of the closet. A broom shifted, tapping the wall.

Riley looked at Matthew and shrugged. He didn't know what to do or what to say. He looked back at the door and made a muffled cry as he saw a red eye staring at them, watching thier movements. Riley pulled the trigger on his rifle and sent a bullet through the door, a cry of pain came from the other side.

"That...sounded human. Like...."

Riley was cut off as a figure walked through the door and into the hall. Walter Murdoch stood in the hall, perfectly normal, spare for a bullet wound in the neck, blood poured from the wound.

"That wasn't very nice Riley..not nice at all."

The figure looked at Matthew.

"Are you frightened?"


**********************************************

As the shadow moved towards Daveed and the bullets struck it, a roar echoed from it and a black animal like shape materizled for several seconds before turning and tumbling to the ground. The figure didn't sit for very long before disappearing in a swirl of rain and darkness.


As Night huddled inside the closet he heard a familar voice from outside the door.

"Sah...I warned them sah. They woke the demons of past...all will die. Spirits of old come back. Sah...you should of run."

It was the voice of the old man from the village.

Night was startled for a moment, then opened the door slowly to face the old man. He now wished he could see the man, for that would make his nerves calm down some more.

"I did warn them. They didn't listen...listen, you've gotta get me out of here. Screw these bastards, they can get out on their own."

He fell silent as he realized something, "Wait...why are you here still?"

Ruben sat behind the large jeep, startled out of his wits. It wasn't the shadows that seemed to bother him so much as the visions and voices he was hearing. When he thought it was all over, Merrin's voice popped into his head, delivering threats of death, pain and suffering. Ruben couldn't understand where it was all coming from or why.

Reloading his weapon, Ruben continued to wait, hoping that whatever this thing was could die from lead.

Daveed watched the thing...the demon, the shadow tumble to the ground and dissolve into the early morning rain and thunger. He found that he was shaking but he knew now that what ever these were they could be killed.

Then it was impossible to distinguish Shadow from torrents of rain and low hung black clouds, but the attackers seemed to be gone.

"Rubin, go get the gas while I find Night. He ran into the hospital somewhere. Move it, man!"

Ruben nodded, getting to his feet and looking around first. There was no sign of Merrin, yet that didn't mean the voices wouldn't stop, they never seemed to stop in this place. The gas wasn't far from the jeep and so Ruben burst into a frantic sprint in order to obtain the gas, get back to the jeep and get away from the taunting voices of the long dead American soldier.

Silence answered Night, the man's breathing was the only sound. Suddenly, something warm splattered against his face. The old man's voice came back.

"You killed me sah. You will die too sah. No escape from the demons. Armies of old didn't defeat them...you will all perish sah."

A sound came from above Night, it sounded like a surge of water. A warm liquid casscaded from above on top of him and the crimson blood seeped out from the closet, visible to all.


As Ruben moved around one of the barracks to the last bit of fuel, Merrin was sitting on the cans, M16 in hand. A twisted smile on his face, the M16 barked and ground in front of Ruben exploded in a flurry of mud and rain.

"I hope you didn't think I would leave you Ruben. No...we got a lot to cover...a lot to do. Kill everyone...and maybe I will let you live...then again you let that bitch kill me. Go on...kill everyone, murder is in your blood."

Ruben halted in his tracks just in time to avoid being set alight by the explosions cause by Merrin. His logical mind thought none of this could be real, but he could feel the heat upon his flesh, the heat threatening to burn his skin away.

Merrin was there again, his rotting corpse looking smug as he attempted to influence Ruben's mind, making him do things he normally wouldn't. At first Ruben found himself taken in by the words as if they were to be obeyed for some reason. Before he could act on such things, his brain jumped into the equation and pointed out that Merrin was dead and killing everyone else would not help the situation.

"Merrin. I don't know what the fuck is going on here but I never liked obeying your orders. Nothing has changed."

Bringing his P90 to bear, Ruben unleashed the clip towards Merrin.

The explosion knocked Ruben to the ground. The fire quickly grabbed one of the barracks and held onto it as it slowly caught fire. Merrin appeared out of the blaze and moved towards Ruben. The body was on fire, its burning eyes stared down at Ruben.

"Sorry about the gas asshole."

It was then Merrin turned and headed back into the fire and disappeared.


Riley heard the explosion, looking at the form of Murdoch, Riley backed away and bolted through the back door. He burst out into the rain and tumbled down the muddly slope into the river bed. As he tried to stand, a skeleton hand shot out of the mud and grabbed his arm. Riley yelled and tried to break free as a face appeared. He saw an ancient helment from the Roman era on the skull.

"Temple....in the demon ground." it said before sinking back into the mud.

Riley backed away from it and ran back up the slope and into the administration building. Matthew was still there but Murdoch wasn't. The sighing had stopped, but he heard the roar of a fire outside.

Ruben watched in horrid silence as Merrin emerged from the flames and spoke to him before spinning around the returning to the firery abyss. It couldn't be real, none of this made any sense to Ruben at all. Sure he had delt with supernatural beings before, yet there was always some element of reality to them, something that could explain what the hell was going on. This was different, it was far worse.

Getting to his feet, Ruben ejected his clip, loaded a new one and began sprinting back towards the building Daveed had run off to. Scared witless, Ruben's eyes darted in every direction as his legs carried him as fast as they could, getting away from the fire and the ghosts of his past.

Daveed searched through the hospital. He knew that Night had to be there somewhere, the other door out was still locked, he'd checked it first. Then he stopped short as the widening pool of blood spreading out from the janitorial closet caught his attention. He shuddered, halting for a second in horror at the amount of blood. Night couldn't have survived that much loss but he made himself step into the ever growing pool and wrench open the door.

"Oh Gods" he sighed in relief as Night, very much alive, and totally covered with blood, came into view

"What is it with you, can't stay clean to save your life" He essayed a small joke

Matthew sat, alone, in the dark, cold, scared and very confused. He didnt know what the hell this thing was but it hadnt died when he had shot a whole clip into it. It just...melted into the ground. As he sat there, pondering the totally fucked up course of events, he heard a slight sighing. He recognized that noise. He saw a black figure rise up out of the ground. He couldnt discern a real shape. It walked towards him. His hands darted into his pockets and his box. He pulled out his lighter and a very small vile containing a clear liquid. He wasnt very sure what this chemical was, but it caught something on fire, and that fire didnt go out for a long time. It wasn't napalm as it had the feeling of regular H2O, but it acted like it.

He pulled off the lid, light his lighter, lit it, and threw the liquid at it, through the flame. It ignited instantly and landed on this, thing. It seemed to land on it, then slowly fall though. It gave a terrible shriek of what he assumed to be pain and flew up through the ceiling.

He pulled his AK out and fired up through the hole the it had made until the clip was empty.

"Better save the others...looks like I might need 'em..." he said to himself.

Riley saw Ruben on the wet ground near the fire. He ran over to him and knealt. The man seemed to be in shock, just staring into the fire. Riley looked over and saw the word GASOLINE on one of the burning cans. Stupid bastard...doesn't want us to leave.

Riley turned to Ruben and dragged him to his feet before decking him.

"You stupid ****! You killed us all!"

Ruben fell back to the ground after being hit and merely stared at Rilely. The fear upon his face was evident as he spoke.

"You don't understand. Merrin is here, he's gonna kill us all. He destroyed the gas."

Getting to his feet, Ruben walked right up into Rilely's face.

"We can't escape!"

Riley struck Ruben again, this time a bit harder and hauled him back up again.

"Pull yourself fucking together. You blew up the gas you ****. Who is this Merrin fello?"

Riley was not in the mood if Ruben was going insane, everything was going into a massive shit storm very quickly. He didn't want Ruben going completely insane and put everyone else in more danger.

The voice in his head wouldn't stop, Merrin kept uttering those two words over and over. Kill him... Getting up once again, Ruben rubbed his jaw and approached Rilely again.

"I don't know what Merrin is anymore."

With that Ruben smashed his head into Rilely's nose, causing him to drop to the ground.

"He was a soldier in the US army. But he died over a year ago... he's here though, and he destroyed the gas. Do you think I want to stay here you bastard? I need to get away from Merrin, but he won't let us, he wants us all dead. Especially me!"

Night just sat there amid the bloody puddle, his blind eyes staring straight ahead. Tears now flowed freely down his face as he shook slightly.

We're not getting out of here...we're going to be hell's little puppets in their theaters of torture... he thought to himself dismally.

As Daveed appeared, he did not notice him, so lost in his thoughts of doom.

"Well that fell flat" Daveed muttered as Night sat nearly catatonic. Roughly Daveed picked him up, tossing the smaller man across one shoulder in a fireman's carry.

"We are getting out of here...Damn it the fires spreading." He commented as he heard a crump of something flamable going up. Some one else must have had a store of gasoline. Ruben hadn't come into get the gas from the hospitals generator room

Nagubuma had been caught by terror as he ran towards the fire.

How the fuck are we going to get out of here now! YOU, FREEZE!

Nagubuma pointed his AK-47 at Ruben, as he say the body next to him

Riley fell to the ground, he was ready to come up and deliever a punch to Ruben when he heard the click of Nagubuma's rifle. He stood quickly and knocked the gun barrel away.

"What the fuck are you doing man?! Is it bad enough we don't have gas? Do we now have to shoot each other?"

Ruben stared down the barrel of the gun until it was suddenly knocked away by Riley in an attempt to prevent a shooting. Of course Ruben didn't really care anymore, death would probably be a solace compared to what he was going through.

Placing his hands upon his ears, Ruben started screaming at apparently no one in an attempt to stope the 'voices' from filling his head. This would end one way or the other, yet Ruben hated not being in control.

Daveed dumped Night down in the passenger seat of the jeep, and looked about for the others. He found them by the simple expedient of following the screams

"What in the fuck is going on here?" He asked as he knelt by the howling Ruben and began to examine him, heedless of the screams.

"HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW! I SEE FLAMES, THIS GUY AND THIS GUY ON THE GROUND! CAN SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED!"

"Everyone calm the fuck down!" Riley bellowed. "There is no need for this."

Riley shivered slightly from the cold that was coming on by the rain. He picked up his mud coverd AK-74, but thankfully due to its construction it would still function. Riley looked at Daveed.

"He blew up the gas, blamed it on some crazy American officer he knew named Merrin. Merrin he said has been dead for over a year. Ruben is losing it doctor. You got any seditives?"

"Yes, but...Not going to need them" His massive fist lashed out, rendering Ruben unconscious.

He got to his feet and picked Ruben up with as much ease as he had Night.

"I don't know who's gas he got blown up, but it wasn't the gas for the hospital's generator. Once I get him into the jeep, I'll go get them and we'll be off."

The last words Ruben heard before plunging into darkness were Riley's ignorant accusation. Not being one to go down easy, Ruben soon awoke within the jeep, his face aching beyond measure. He wasn't sure how he got in here, yet he assumed someone carried him.

Going over recent events, Ruben frowned, then smiled as he realised something. The voices were gone. He couldn't hear anything within his head anymore. Sitting upright, Ruben spun around to find Riley standing nearby.

"You..."

Ruben stopped as his jaw ached with the effort of speaking.

"You idiot. Do you really think I would blow up the gas? Why the fuck do you think I want to stay here? Did you even think about it before you started flinging accusations? I have no intention of dying at the moment and need to get the hell out of here."

Daveed came out of the hospital, one last backpack on his back, the cheetah cub riding atop, and three full five gallon heavy double walled plastic gasoline cans in his hands.

"Here we go. Nagubuma tuck this backpack in the back with the rest. Ruben, you're going to ride up front with me now that you've calmed down. Riley - you and Nagubuma are riding in the back seat with Night between you. Matthew will ride in the back."

Setting the cans down he lifted the cub and it's sleeping blanket to Ruben. "Hold him for a moment - He's going to ride in the floor board, at your feet. He's not dangerous."

Once Ruben had taken the cub, and Daveed handed the back pack to Nagubuma, he proceeded to fill the gas tank with two of the cans, ten gallons total. That would bring the tank up to fifteen, with another five if needed.

"That should get us two hundred miles easily."

"I wouldn't say that." a voice came behind Daveed. The man turned to see a soldier dressed in United States Army fatigues.

The figure laughed, it began to decay until it was tattered flesh and clothes hanging off bones.

"My name is Sean Merrin. You might know my friend Ruben sitting behind you. I wouldn't trust him. The man is a convict, murderer...he will cut you open to get after whatever money you have. You have a good head...take a look in the mine mate. That is where they are. They will chase you and eat you up...and I will have my fun with Ruben."

Riley looked over to see Daveed looking at something. He looked over to see the old man hobbling over. He stood in the Jeep and waved. The old man looked up, Riley couldn't see much detail on the face, but it wasn't that of the old man.

The eyes were a bright red and black shadow began to come out of the figure and began to rush the Jeep. Riley pulled out his AK-74 and opened fire.

"Daveed...get back in the damn Jeep. We are in deep shit."

"I'd say so" Daveed comented as he rolled over the hood of the jeep "Peoples ghost's aren't respecting boundries any more. Ruben, can't you keep your shit under control?"

As he rolled over the hood, he pulled the Desert Eagle out of it's holster. His feet hit the ground and he put first one round then another square in the center of Merrin's chest. Then he was diving into the jeep and turning the engine over. The jeeps engine kicked over and Daveed called out a warning that he was hitting the gas.

Ruben took the cub and sat quietly. After all the shit he had just been through all he wanted to do was get out of here, away from Merrin, away from this country for good.

At that point Merrin appeared again, informing Daveed of his true nature, of what he did for a living. More under control this time, Ruben drew his USP and fired upon Merrin.

"Stay dead you fucking yank!"

Wether it was the massive bullets unleashed with from the Desert Eagle alone, or combined with Ruben's firepower but Merrin figure powdered into nothingness.

"And so Rubens killed a few people." Daveed snorted and his voice was ascerbic "Damn, I'm so friggin shocked. Well so have I...Though" He turned to look at Ruben as she cranked the wheel on the jeep and pressed down hard on the gas pedal "I will admit I'v never cut some one up for their gold. So Ruben, just to let you know...I got no gold on me." He laughed roughly and winked at Ruben. He was pleased to see that the man next to him had recovered from his earlier funk

Riley was nearly tossed out of the Jeep as it lurched forward. The man got down and held onto the side as tightly as he could as the vehicle bounced along the terrain, quickly followed by the shadow. The jeep spun down into the river bed and took off down it. Riley looked up to see that they were being encircled, but the creatures didn't move closer.

"Daveed...Daveed slow down. They aren't moving closer. Something might be scaring them right here."

Riley then remembered the encounter he had down at the bed. It hit him.

"Daveed, I know how we can kill these things once and for all."

"Daveed, I know how we can kill these things once and for all."

If there was a more appropriate time than this for Marcus Night to awaken at long last, it would have been hard to find in the chaos that had surrounded them. Opening his eyes, he looked up blindly to the sky and turned his head to Riley.

"Kill them? No...the shaman said it was impossible..." he said softly, his voice reflecting his mental state of grogginess.

"Riley, you are freaking nuts. We are not stopping, I don't care if they are destroyed or not. We are getting out of here and that is that."

Daveed caught Nights return to consciousness "Welcome back Night."

He kept his attention on his driving. He wasn't going to stay in the river bed more than a few dozen feet. He saw a los easy slope and headed the jeep up it and out of the river bed. With the rains starting the bed could flood at any time and he wouldn't risk it. Keeping the jeep at a steady pace he headed them toward the nearest outpost of civilization

Ruben remained silent for a moment, watching where Merrin's body had been. He didn't believe the ghost or whatever he was had died, but at least he was gone for now. Getting back into the seat, Ruben reloaded his USP and looked to Daveed as they drove off.

"I've got all the gold I need for the moment. You have nothing to fear from me."

Whilst Ruben's tone seemed humourous, there was much more truth within it than the others could percieve.

Matthew heard the jeep rev to life outside and begin to drive away.
"Shit!" he yelled and ran outside just in time to see it go over a small hill.

"Well god fucking dammit. Now IM stuck in this shithole." He kicked the ground and began to walk in the jeeps direction. At least he had some ammo.

Riley looked at Night.

"Not kill them..but seal them up. When we were mining we must of broken open an ancient temple that housed them. We need to cave in the mine."

Riley didn't bother talking to Daveed, he looked behind him to see the shadows were breaking off. He looked behind him to see a figure moving towards the jeep.

"Oh God....Daveed turn around. We left Matthew."

"I really didn't notice that Matthew was gone. I was too busy firing at the god damn fucking dead guys. So, how are we to seal this mine?"

Daveed cursed and wrenched the wheel around, speeding back to Matthew. He pulled up next tothe panting figure, and yelled for him to jump in

"Damn it matthew this train leaves on time."

He looked tiredly over at Riley. He really didn't want to stay

"Damn it Riley I'm not out to clear the world of ancient temples and shadow demons. I'd rather leave that to the experts...who ever they are."

Matthew sighed with relief as the jeep came speeding back to him.

"Thanks Daveed. Sorry for the hold up," he yelled as he clambered in, careful not to damage his little box of tricks.

OC: (very unobvious subtle hint lol)

Riley was trying to get his head straight. The creatures attacked them at thier camp, but held off in the river bed till they reached a certain point. Something was keeping them out, but what?

"Daveed, listen to me. Notice how the creatures are keeping away from us while we are in this strech of the riverbed? Something is scaring them right here. There was a battle here, long time ago. Something must of been there to keep the creatures from hitting the village too if it was there. Daveed...for God's sake...if we can find whatever it was in this bed...we can keep driving non-stop. If not, the things will...here they come!"

Riley lifted his rifle and opened fire as the shadow suddenly sweapt down from the top of the riverbed to thier side and to their front.

"How the fuck are we supposed to do that!"

Nagubuma unloaded a clip of the AK-47 into a shadow.

OOC: GS- not in the river bed any longer - with the arrival of rains the ground will be too dry to absorb, so there will be flash flooding and being in a river bed is a good way to be caught in one- so in my second to last post Daveed left the river bed.
**********************************************
Daveed looked at Riley skeptically from the corners of his eyes as he concentrated on his driving. "That may be all well and good, but staying to find this what ever it is is not- and we don't have any idea of what we are looking for. I don't intend to stay and die"

Marcus Night looked blindly about, a subconscious effort to locate and identify the noises that were all around him now. He was coming out of his dulled state of mind, and now was thinking clearly.

Turning to Daveed, he just merely demanded, "Floor the damn thing already!"

ooc: oops...my bad

ic:

"I have no idea!" Riley shouted as he fired at the shadows. "Just floor this fucking pile of shit! We got a long way to go before we reach a village or a station!"

Snarls, moans, and screams filled the ears of the men as they sprayed the creatures with gunfire. Riley ejected a spent magizine and was in the process of putting in another when a black hand grasped his leg. Riley yelled and held onto the back of the driver's seat as the creature tried to pull him out.

"Help me!"

Ruben cursed as he noticed the creature grabbing Riley, attempting to yank him out of the moving vehicle. He didn't know if he could make any difference but Ruben wasn't in a mood to be worrying about such things and merely cocked his USP pistol.

Screaming something unintelligible, Ruben fired his pistol straight into the centre of the shadow creature.

Matthew reached into his box with one hand, firing off random shots with his AK in the other. He pulled a fairly large clear bottle out the box and lobbed it back at the creatures. It landed right infront of them and exploded in a burst of blue and green flame.

"Bloody bastards! Eat this! And this! And this!" he screamed as he continued to hurl explosive bottles, each containing a specially mixed chemical, at the shadow creatures.

"Daveed! How far do you think it is to the nearest station?" he yelled over the now common explosion.

OOC: I made a post right after GS did, and darn it the thread ate it...sigh

*********************************

Daveed couldn't reach Riley, who was on the passenger side rear seat, but he could slam on the brakes. Every one went flying about the jeep, cursing loudly but what ever it was had been disuaded by Rubens weapons fire and the sudden stop, it released Rileys leg as Daveed stepped on the gas, flooring it and sending the jeep roaring forward.

"Daveed! How far do you think it is to the nearest station?"

Daveed could barely hear over the explosions, and had to take a few moments to desipher what Matthew had said.

"Two hundred miles give or take a few."

The jeep bucked and jerked as it sped down the dirt track, Daveed concentrating with all his might to keep them from either sliding into the river bed or getting stuck in the increasingly large mudpits that the pounding rain was causing. But between Matthews explosive bottles and the jeeps speed they seemed to be leaving the shadows behind.

Riley panted in the back of the Jeep, the near death experiance had taken a lot out of him. He felt something warm on his leg as the rain fell on him. He looked up and moved some wet strands of hair to see a blackish gunk on his leg. The gunk slowly dripped off him as the rain fell on it.

"Jesus Christ..they do bleed."

He grabbed a wet towel and started to wipe the black blood off him. He held the now unusable towel away from him and dropped it over the side of the jeep. Riley looked behind them to see the shadows were disappearing. This should have made him feel better.

He looked up into the dark sky and could see it was getting darker.

"Daveed...I hope you had the idea of packing a radio."

Daveed shook his head "Riley out here, away from the base station and no relay towers in sight a radio aint worth shit. I packed both of my Irridiums and their extra batteries though."

He looked in the rearview mirror, double checking where the pack that they were in was. The satallite phones were in the center of the packs in their special hardened cases

"They're in the pack next to Nagubuma, just below the extra toilet tissue, and wrapped in several layers of tee shirts. Lets get a little further before breaking them out though."

ooc: lets skip forward a few days

ic:

Riley climbed out of the jeep. The tiny camp they had gotten to was a few single story adobe buildings, a windmill stood in the center of the camp. A tiny fenced in area for sheep was at the corner of one of the buildings. Riley pulled his rifle from the jeep and walked into the tiny camp.

"Hello?!" He shouted. "Hello?!"

The windmill creaked slowly in the wind and the man walked to one of the buildings and opened the door. He was greeted by the sounds of flies and blood caked walls. Several bloated corpses, all skinned and torn to pieces were in the center of the room.

"Daveed!"

ooc: IMO Shadows has come to a good stopping point for now, I do not want it to grow old and stale. The Rp has gone on for a nice bit and I have enjoyed it throughly. I understand if there is a few steamed heads about this, but I hope you all can understand that I don't want this Rp to chug along at a 2-3 post a week pace.

There will defintaly be a sequel to come along for the second half of Shadows.

OC: sounds good to me. its good to stop for now and rejuvinate some enthusiasm for the next chunk.