by S. R. Witt
Chase jammed the key in the ignition and gave it a savage twist, stomping on the gas as the engine roared to life. Chase offered silent thanks to Paxton for having the foresight to park the van pointed at the road. Then she pushed on the accelerator’s hand control until it bottomed out.
The van roared and lurched forward, wheels spitting gravel into the faces of the Sleepers charging around the house. Chase pushed the van for all it was worth. The lumbering vehicle gained speed as its tires dug into the gravel drive. Its headlights splashed across masked faces lunging into the road to block Chase’s escape.
Chase's instinct was to stomp on the brake, but she refused to give in to it. Whatever these people were, they'd tried to hurt her. They'd taken her brother, they’d tortured her father, they may have killed her mother.
They didn’t deserve mercy. They deserved to die. Chase screamed and kept the van on its course, rage guiding her.
The van plowed through the front ranks of masked attackers, shattering bodies and rupturing skulls in a gruesome spray. Shards of bone pinged off the windshield, and viscous gouts of blood splattered across the hood. The van's wheels slipped and churned through the muck as they ground bodies into gore, transforming the gravel driveway into a muddy bog.
For a moment, Chase was worried that the sheer mass of bodies crushed by the van would bring it to a stop. The steering wheel slithered through her fingers, circling from side to side as the wheels tried to find purchase in the slippery mud.
But the van's momentum carried it through the pulped bodies, and it burst through the gate at the end of the driveway with a triumphant roar. Chase wrestled the wheel to the left, spinning it with one hand, and working the brake with the other, as the van tottered unsteadily on the two right wheels. Blood and viscera sloshed off the tilted hood, and for a moment, Chase was sure she'd oversteered and was about to dump the van into the ditch on the far side of the road.
Then gravity reasserted itself, and all four of the van's wheels slammed down hard on the pavement. The Dodge shot forward, shedding the last Sleepers clinging to its body as it rolled down the road.
Standing in the road behind her, the surviving Sleepers howled, their voices raised like a pack of demented wolves. She watched them in her rearview for a long moment, until they disappeared into the darkness and the van's red taillights showed nothing but asphalt.
Chapter Eighteen
The Vestal
Chase kept the van’s accelerator lever shoved all the way in until her heart stopped hammering against her ribs and the primal rage slithered back into the cave at the back of her mind. Then she pulled the van down a narrow side road off the country highway and killed its engine and lights.
Her chest itched, and she reached under the bottom of her tattered and bloody concert T-shirt to scratch at the circular ridge centered over her sternum.
“This shit is getting too weird,” she muttered to herself. As she scratched at the abnormal growth beneath her skin, the familiar rings hovered into her view. Three of the smaller divots in the center of the talisman glowed with emerald light, and Chase realized she was looking at the power she’d stolen from the dead Sleeper’s soul. Chase wasn’t sure what she could do with them, but there was something darkly comforting in knowing that the deaths of her enemies were making her stronger.
As the thought settled in, Chase saw a fourth large circle appear on the outer ring between the talisman’s Spirit and Body circles. A runic legend appeared beneath it, and Chase read the word: “Weapon.” Six glowing dots rested inside the Weapon circle, marking its power.
More details emerged from the talisman’s image in Chase’s mind. Two more large circles had appeared on it’s outer ring, and several smaller circles had appeared around the inner ring. On the outer ring, a Victim circle now occupied the space between the Mind and Spirit circles, while a Mask circle sat between Mind and Body. Each of the larger circles, except for Mask and Victim, held smaller glowing dots that Chase recognized as her rating for those abilities.
The circles on the inner ring were details related to the larger circles on the outer ring. Lines extended from the Body circle to smaller circles labelled Strength, Fortitude, and Dexterity. As Chase concentrated on each of the circles in turn, she understood what they represented. Strength was the raw power of her body, and, with two dots told Chase she was about as strong as an average person. Her Dexterity, ranked well above average at four, was a representation of her agility and fine motor control. Finally, Fortitude held an impressive six dots which told Chase she could survive a lot more damage than the average person.
Something about this abstraction helped ease Chase’s mind. She was still unsettled by the ease and eagerness with which she’d embraced brutal violence as a means to an end, but the talisman’s black-and-white game logic eased the burden on her conscience. She hadn’t made the rules of the game she’d become trapped inside, but if she wanted to survive she had no choice but to play by them.
For the second time in her life, people had tried to kill Chase. She’d survived by butchering her attackers, and she wasn't going to beat herself up over what it happened next. “If you don't want to fucking die,” she snarled at her assailants, past and future, “don't try to kill me.”
Chase realized she had to get her head in the game if she wanted to survive. She'd escaped the first attack from the Sleepers, but she had no doubt there would soon be more. If she stayed put, the Sleepers would find her, eventually, and there’d be more death. More killing.
More importantly, there was the matter of winning the Nightmare Game. Chase hadn’t wanted to take part in the grisly ritual, but her family’s lives were on the line. Someone had pushed all her chips into the pot, and she’d be damned if she didn't try to win them back.
“Look to the skies,” she muttered, and did just that.
Chase threw the driver's side door open and hopped out. Her boots hit the cracked black pavement, and she stalked to the back of the van. She put one foot on the bumper, then grabbed hold of the rain gutter running along the edge of the roof. She dragged herself up on top of the van to get a good look at the sky, unobstructed by the scrubby trees surrounding her van.
From her elevated vantage point, Chase could see for miles in every direction. Five golden circles hung in the night sky, cones of warm light pouring down onto the ground from their centers. “I guess that answers that,” Chase said, encouraged by the parallels between this horror show and the video games she and Paxton had played together.
“Should have been you, brother,” Chase said. Pax had always been better at RPGs, especially the more involved ones like World of Warcraft or Everquest. Chase had played with him, but she preferred table-top action. She’d been too busy learning how to fight and kill to invest hours camping for rare loot or grinding reputation with digital NPCs.
And yet, here she was. Living out some twisted version of those very games.
Chase clambered off the van and hoisted herself back into the driver's seat. She fired up the ignition and kept driving down the narrow road since it was headed in roughly the same direction as the nearest ring she’d seen. Whenever she came to a turn, Chase looked up at the sky and took the road that seemed to be heading toward her target. The golden light was a beacon, but it wasn't nearly as handy as a functioning GPS signal would have been since it couldn’t tell her if she was on the right road until she found herself moving away from it.
A half-hour later, Chase finally reached a road that seemed to be pointed directly at her target. She followed the light for a few minutes, then decided she didn’t want to just drive right up to it. She’d seen the kind of mayhem that happened around a rare spawn in a computer game, she didn’t want to run right into that when it involved real people and real weapons.
Chase pulled the van off the road, eased it through the shallow ditch and up to the trees bordering the asphalt. The van wasn’t exactly invisible where she left it, but it was a lot less obvious than it would have been
trundling down the middle of the rural road. She killed the engine, tucked the keys into her pocket, and headed for her target.
As Chase hiked through the sparse forest alongside the road, she weighed her strategic options. There were six other Slayers and five targets. While that told her it was unlikely all of the Slayers would be heading for the same marker she’d chosen, there was a good chance at least one of them had. The best option seemed to be to hang back, get the lay of the land, and make sure there was no one waiting to ambush her.
Her trek led her to a darkened farmhouse with a small barn behind it. A single naked bulb jutted from the front of the barn, throwing a thirty-foot circle of light on the ground in front of it.
Chase held her ground and watched for any movement. After a few minutes, she drew her knife and prepared to run down to the barn to get a closer look.
Before she could take a step, however, a bloodcurdling shriek burst from within the barn. Chase tensed, and held her ground. If the masked freaks had found the same location, Chase wanted to see them before they saw her.
On the other hand, if it was one of the Sacred Martyrs being stalked by another Slayer, she didn’t want to lose her chance to claim a token. Chase ground her teeth in frustration, trying to decide what to do next.
The barn’s front door crashed open, shedding flakes of rusty red paint. A woman in a pale blue dress burst out of the open door, her long blond hair trailing behind her. A long, bloody stain ran down her back. Chase blinked when she recognized the librarian. A warm golden glow surrounding the woman told Chase this was one of the Martyrs.
“One of the only nice people in town,” she grumbled. “Of course she’s prey.”
Another figure erupted from the barn behind the librarian, swinging a two-handed ax in a brutal slash that clipped the trailing end of the librarian’s ponytail and sent golden strands flying through the night air.
Hello there, Mr. Rival Slayer, Chase thought. As she focused her attention on the man, a crackling yellow-orange aura swam into view around him. She didn’t know how she knew it, but Chase now understood that meant he was a roughly even match for her in a fight. Chase wasn't sure how accurate that assessment was. She didn’t feel like her knife was much of a match for the man's log-splitting ax in a fair fight.
Guess it better not be a fair fight, Chase thought, and a feral grin stole across her features.
She predicted the librarian would run toward the woods to her right, and started moving in that direction. She hid behind a tree and drew her knife, flicking the blade into locked position as she did so.
A minute later, the librarian stumbled past the tree where Chase was hiding. The slayer, taller and less nimble than his prey, stumbled and battled against the forest undergrowth, losing ground on his target.
Chase held still as stone, waiting for the rival Slayer to pass her. She could smell the stink of blood on him as he neared her tree and watched through the trees as he carved a path through the smaller trees with angry swipes of his bloodied ax.
“You can’t run forever,” he shouted, his voice clotted with venomous rage. “When I catch you, I’ll rip your heart out!”
Chase peered around the tree she’d sheltered behind and saw the man’s back. He was just standing there, his ax cocked over his shoulder, dragging in great whooping breaths.
Without warning, Chase lunged forward and hooked her knife’s curved blade in the crook of her rival’s arm. Its serrated edge sliced through his flannel shirt and bit deep into his elbow, severing the muscles and chewing into the tendons.
The Slayer howled, and Chase pulled her arm back, slicing through connective tissues in the man’s arm. He spun to face her, and his nearly severed forearm flopped uselessly from the end of his bicep. The weight of the ax still clenched in his fist caused the arm to droop toward the ground like a puppet with cut strings. The Slayer grabbed his weapon with his left hand before it could slide out of his grasp.
“I’m going to kill you first for that,” he growled and flung himself at Chase.
Chase easily avoided her attacker’s clumsy charge and twirled her knife around to a reversed grip.
Her enemy skidded to a stop ten feet past Chase and hefted his weapon. “That little knife all you got?”
Chase shrugged. “Just this little knife and the fifteen years of training in how to use it to carve the balls off dickheads like you. This little knife has killed people. What’s the score on that ax of yours?”
“Tonight?” the man said with a cold smirk on his face. “I've killed two already.”
“Ooh, impressive. I killed more than that before I turned six years old,” Chase taunted, rolling her knife around her hand in a flashy display of manual dexterity. “Why don’t you come over here and we’ll get this over with. I’ve got places to be, assholes to kill.”
The axman rushed Chase. He hoisted his weapon high over his head and roared with anger as he sped toward her.
Nice work, idiot, Chase thought. She waited, timing her move with practiced precision.
As the ax-wielding maniac reached Chase, he threw his weight forward, driving the unbalanced weapon toward her upturned face.
At that moment, he was overcommitted. He couldn't move, he couldn't dodge, he couldn’t do anything but carry through with his attack.
Against a slower opponent, that would have been more than enough. Against a less-skilled opponent, the ax would have plunged into a defenseless face, and split the skull wide open.
Against Chase, the brutal attack was worse than worthless.
She stepped forward and tilted her body to the left, twisting around to let the attack pass harmlessly. As the ax handle drew level with Chase's shoulder, she turned again, spinning in a tight counterclockwise circle and driving the talon-like tip of her knife into the Slayer’s exposed stomach. Chase continued with her spin, raking the serrated blade through the man's intestines and out his back in a grisly spray of shit and blood.
Chase finished her spin facing the bigger man's back. She flicked her knife, shedding blood and viscera into the fallen leaves. “Give up,” she said. “I don't have time for this shit, and you don't have what it takes to kill me. Turn around, walk away.”
But the man wasn't giving up. He stumbled around in a half-circle to face Chase. He leaned on the ax handle and grimaced as a coil of intestine bulged through the gash in his side and slid down his leg. “I'll fucking kill you for that,” he snarled.
He was faster than he looked, and Chase almost caught the ax on the chin as the man suddenly whipped it up and around in a circle. She backpedaled furiously, doing her best to avoid the frenzied attack. He swung the ax in a figure-eight, the head whistling as it slashed through the air in ever-quickening circuits.
Chase had seen a lot of strong men in her life, but she had never seen anyone strong enough to swing a weapon that unbalanced and unwieldy so quickly. The man was much more powerful than he looked, much faster than his initial attack had led her to believe. Unwilling to take any chances, Chase backed away, keeping plenty of distance between herself and her attacker. He circled around her, driving her out of the woods with a bewildering array of spinning attacks.
Chase looked for an opening to finish the fight, but couldn't find a way to cut her opponent without suffering a much deadlier wound in return. And then her shoulders hit the barn.
“Shit,” Chase spat.
She ducked low as the ax slammed into the wood where her head had just been. Flying splinters stung the back of her neck and peppered her shoulders, bouncing off her motorcycle jacket and sticking in her long ponytail. As the man struggled to wrench the ax free from where it had lodged in the barn, Chase darted in and drew a long, bloody gash across his chest. The hooked blade tore through the meat, shredding away his flannel shirt and a flap of skin to expose the glistening cage of his ribs Blood sprayed from the wound, splashing across Chase's face and soaking into her black T-shirt.
The axman abandoned his weapon and spun to face Ch
ase. His hand darted forward and locked around her throat so suddenly she only realized she’d been grabbed when she couldn't breathe. With a guttural roar, the man lifted Chase off her feet and slammed her back into the barn's wooden side. The attack rattled Chase's brain, scrambling her senses and sending her eyes rolling in their sockets. He slammed her into the barn again, this time hard enough that something inside Chase cracked.
The pattern from her amulet flashed across her vision, and Chase saw the rune in her Fortitude sphere drop from six to three. The pain radiating through her body was beyond anything Chase had ever experienced, but she didn’t feel anywhere near half dead. Apparently, being a Slayer had some serious perks when it came to walking off injuries.
Chase tried to slash at her attacker with her knife before the rival slayer could bash her into the barn again, but the man shook her like a rat caught in a dog’s jaws and her attack went wild.
With a berserk roar, the Slayer pulled Chase close to his body and then shoved her at the barn with all his might. The world rushed past Chase, and this time she slammed through the barn’s wall and into its shadowed interior. Surprised, the axman lost his grip on Chase, and she sailed away from him to crash down onto the hay-strewn floor.
Fire clawed at Chase’s throat, and her lungs ached when she gulped in a breath of the cool autumn air. She’d lost another point of Fortitude and knew if she didn’t make her move, very soon, she was dead.
Chase staggered to her feet as the axman charged around the barn and came roaring through its open door after her.
The tall man caught Chase before she could dodge. His shoulder hammered to her chest and lifted Chase off the floor. Thrown off her feet, Chase landed hard on her back, the air gushing from her lungs. The big man reached down to grab her with his remaining good arm, and Chase made a last, desperate attack.
She hooked her knife’s extractor tip into the man’s left forearm and twisted it up and to the right. She kept rotating her arm, slicing through the muscle with the serrated edge, and then opening the wound further with a spiraling cut from the smooth, but still razor sharp, back edge of the curved blade.
