PURGING THE GAP - Chapter Five

PURGING THE GAP

Chapter Five

The red moon was the first thing you'd seen this time upon waking up. You've decided to call this place, wherever it is, by the simple name of Nightmare. The moon, you mused, was also a bit more full. Instead of a sliver of baleful crimson, it was now about one-quarter of a fat, red sphere. However time worked here in Nightmare, the moon still seems to obey a proper cycle.

Looking around, you find yourself on a dusty tin roof. A very large, and sometimes holed, tin roof. Whatever building your atop of, it's not as high as the hotel, but it certainly seems larger. There are several others to your left, and a scattering of smoke-stacks belching out thick, dark clouds into the night give you the sense this is some sort of industrial area. Odd, considering everything about Nightmare had a rather pre-industrial feel until now. Getting up carefully, you wince at the sensation of many tiny shooting pains. You gasp, a sudden flash of many angry jeweled eyes in your imagination.

Taking several shaking steps forward, the old tin creaking and clanking with your shoes, things rush back to you. A tunnel. A pretty but treacherous little herd of unicorns. Water rushing into a dark place. More fuzzy, you also recall something about a bear and the definite sense to stay out of the hotel you were comparing these (warehouses?) buildings to.

You also remember the beach. Oh sweet God, you think, why can't I stay there? Why do I have to keep waking up in this Nightmare???

Then your remember there is someone named Vesper. Something you need to tell them. What was it? Could this Vesper really help you?

Far off, beyond the spewing chimneys and rusting rooftops, you hear faint shouting. The angry moon glowers down at you, and you feel very exposed. Carefully picking your way around holes in the roof, you eventually get to the side of the building. A not-entirely-sturdy looking metal ladder is soon discovered, and while you remember enough to know the ladder might kill you, you don't think it will. Whatever force controls this place, it's likely not going to be satisfied so easily.

The shouting again, distant still, but this time you make out several words that sound like "Coming", "Cycles", and "Lunar". You take a last glimpse up at the moon, but it naturally gives you no idea to what the shouter is going on about. Carefully, you climb down. When you get to the cobblestones of the street, the warehouses seem much larger, almost as if they are crowding in around you. Several steps away from the ladder, and an agonized metal shriek fills the air. You dash up the street, narrowly avoiding the falling ladder. Panting to a stop, you shake your head in disbelief. Muttering to yourself that the damned thing did seem to want to kill you after all, you slowly keep walking towards where the buildings end.

A neat stack of rusted drums appears along the wall of the right building. A black, tarry substance is leaking out of them. Cautiously, you press your back against the wall of the left building, literally trying to stay as far from the whatever-it-is seeping out of those barrels. You remember enough to trust nothing, even seemingly harmless things like the ladder and these drums. Three steps past the last drum, a bit of the black goo suddenly spits at you. It misses your shoulder by a good margin, but it scares you enough to send you running anyway. A hissing, caustic sound is heard from wherever it landed.

Along with the faint shouts, you swear you heard low laughing. For just a second or two, but definitely laughing. And not the friendly kind of good friends or your favorite relative after they've played a light-hearted joke on you. Malicious, dark, and altogether disturbing laughter. Unlike the shouting, it seemed to have come from everywhere and nowhere.

Your brow is covered in a cold sweat. Somehow, you get the alarming feeling that Nightmare isn't just merely hazardous, but innately and willingly lethal. Like some great maze of terror, built by...

Mad One. Mad One? Why did that pop into your head?

Finally reaching where the two warehouses end, the little street opens onto a broader one. The torches line it at even intervals, still guttering, still as eerie as ever. Looking up and down this main road, as it seems, you see the rows of warehouses and what seem to be mills or factories of some kind. They stretch on as far as you can see. The smoke-stacks tower above everything at seemingly random spots, the moon now barely gleaming through the thick haze of soot and ash roiling out of them. As you slowly make your way down the road, little bits of ash start raining down sporadically. Some spots on the cobblestones are covered enough with the grit that you leave prints behind you. At first, you consider trying to cover your tracks, but this idea becomes pointless as the fine powder clings to your shoes, leaving more prints on the bare stones you happen upon. Leaving a clear indicator of your path only adds to the rising stress you are feeling.

Walking through the industrial wasteland, you realize that the shouting voice has moved beyond your hearing. The throbbing and humming of machines becomes more apparent as you near one of the factories. Pausing, you look at the brick and metal building. Film-coated windows, half-open, let out a hard orange light. A bay door stands closed, but small rust holes pepper it, letting out more of that hellish light. Curiosity nearly begs for you to try and peek through one of the holes, but somehow you're not sure you want to see what kind of industry goes on here. The kind that makes spitting, black acid stuff, you remind yourself. By the barrel full.

A crackle of something electric makes your hair stand on end. Looking around wildly, you don't see anything. Another crackle and a bright flash from two buildings away, another of the dull warehouses. This one IS taller, much taller than the rest of them. Not as tall as the factory chimneys, but certainly ten stories. The biggest thing you've seen, it also seems slightly different. Almost like it's not completely there, like it's covered some bit of this reality. The large, tall windows along the front of the building briefly flash white-blue and then go dark again. You start to run back down the road, the way you came. A definite hum fills the air, some infernal machine spooling up inside the warehouse. A loud, groaning protest of hinges and girders, squelching in rusted agony. The angry buzz of electricity fills the air again.

The sound of propellers biting the sooty air. You pause, thinking you must be hearing things. Looking back, you see the roof of the tall warehouse split open, the entire length actually a set of large doors. Rising out from it, unbelievable, is the bulk of a black airship. It's dark hull lifting up on rotors, holes in the fabric revealing glints of metal framework. Oddly, there is a horse's head painted prominently at the nose of the flying behemoth, the dingy pale hue striking against the ebon vessel. The hum of electricity increases, and engines start pushing the pencil-shaped thing forward. It's very slow, and you realize with terror that there are figures in the small, boat-like car slung underneath the nose of the ship. Rather suddenly, a great crackle of electricity wracks along the ship's frame.

You run.

Spotlights beam down from the black ship, probing along the streets and alleys. One sweeps just in front of you, and you nearly trip as you suddenly stop. The pale circle of light keeps going, and when you're certain it won't come back your way, you run again. The humming of the engines increases, and the massive bulk of the thing flies only a couple hundred feet over you. Several other cars hang below it, searchlights roving from their edges. Three of them suddenly get a bead on something several blocks off, and an intense throbbing builds up. In a bright, eye-scorching blast, a great bolt of energy jags out of the ship's bow to where the spotlights focus. A great pillar of smoke and fire shoots into the sky where it hit, a smoke-stack near the strike zone teeters and falls, gouts of black soot and ash trailing in it's wake. The roar of collapse reaches you and sounds incredibly loud even from where you stand.

Shaking yourself from the trance of the dark ship, you run down a side street, away from the flying terror. For a split second, you hear that dark laughing again. A spotlight flashes several feet in front of you. Letting out a panicked yelp, you unthinkingly dodge into the open doorway of a large factory. Stopping just inside the vast room, you decide whatever might lurk in here is better than waiting to be spotted by that flying lightning generator...

To be continued...