by S. R. Witt
Chase didn’t want any of those, though, because they seemed like a one-way trip to monster town. She needed something more useful, something that would let her walk around without slaughtering everyone who crossed her path or transforming herself into a hideous beast who couldn’t go outside without making the neighborhood kids run screaming.
When she played video games, she'd always been partial to sneaky characters. She’d always favored scouts or snipers, a role that allowed her to get in, do some damage to the opposing team, and then get out before anyone knew she was there. That role seemed like the best fit for her in the Nightmare Game, too.
As if in response to her thoughts, the perfect power floated into view. The image of a hooded figure wreathed in ghostly green fog floated above the power’s name. “Phantasm,” Chase whispered to herself, as she read the ability’s name. It seemed like the perfect combination of stealth and movement for her needs. ‘I’ll take it.”
The bright green runes of her new power’s name appeared just below Chase’s mental image of her talisman. Chase rubbed her hands together. “All right, then.”
The Weapon sphere throbbed with pulses of bright light in Chase’s thoughts, drawing her attention. She focused her attention on it, and a trio of smaller circles emerged on the ends of narrow spokes. Runic labels appeared beneath each of the circles and Chase focused on each of them in turn.
The first circle, labeled Damage, measured the weapon’s raw strength. Chase understood that the Damage rating would directly reduce the Fortitude of anyone she struck with the weapon. The second circle, Cruelty, would increase the weapon’s chance of inflicting a critical wound on her foes. Finally, the weapon’s Durability measured how well the weapon could stand up to damage inflicted upon it.
It took Chase a moment to understand she needed to prioritize the three aspects of the weapon. Durability she relegated to the third position, because she didn’t see herself parrying attacks with the knife or using it for anything but slicing her enemies open.
Damage was an essential aspect of any weapon, but Chase hesitated to place it first. The knife had already proven itself more than adequate when it came to inflicting wounds against Sleepers and even another Slayer. Giving Damage top priority might marginally improve her knife’s ability to kill things, but Chase didn’t think it would make a huge difference.
Cruelty, on the other hand, seemed like it had real potential. If this was anything like the other games Chase had played, a higher chance to inflict critical wounds could exponentially increase the weapon’s damage. Against tougher foes, that edge could mean the difference between life and death.
Chase pushed Damage into second priority, and Cruelty slid into the first position.
“Let’s see about these little guys,” Chase muttered to herself.
She reached out with mental fingers and plucked one of the smallest glowing orbs from the center of the talisman’s pattern. She slid the orb into the weapons Damage aspect, increasing it from six to seven.
A weight filled Chase’s hand. She looked down to find the knife open and its blade locked in place. It seemed a little larger, the hooked tip more severely curved. She tested its balance, though, and found it spun around her hand with the same ease.
“Neat,” she said and returned it to her pocket comforted by the menacing aura that clung to the weapon now. It seemed more dangerous, no, more eager, after she’d invested some of the power she’d harvested from the other Slayer into it.
Chase quickly dragged another spirit orb from the center of the talisman’s image to the Cruelty circle attached to the Weapon circle, increasing it from eight to nine. A final adjustment moved a third orb from the center of the talisman out to the Durability circle of the Weapon, raising that from four to five. Chase could almost hear the knife purring in her pocket as it grew in power.
She turned and motioned for Sarah to return to the passenger's seat. “All right, we need to get the hell out of here before another maniac shows up to fight me for you.”
Chase closed the back doors and tugged the handles to make sure they were latched. She felt better, not great, but at least more in control of what was happening to her. She understood what the Nightmare Game wanted of her, which was a good start toward surviving the night.
It also told her what she needed to know to break those rules and cheat her way out of the game before she ended up as a monster. The powers she’d just gained might give her the edge she needed to save her family and get the hell out of Crucible without having to murder too many more people. She might even be able to save Sarah while she was at it.
She hauled herself up into the van and slammed the driver’s side door behind her. She cranked the engine to life and goosed the accelerator.
“Are we going to the next marker?” Sarah said, looking up into the sky at the glowing golden halos that remained.
Chase shook her head. “No, I have another idea. Something better.”
Sarah raised an eyebrow at Chase. “What's the plan?”
Chase grinned, a feral, hungry look. “Show me where the sheriff lives.”
Chapter Twenty
Breaking
The sheriff lived in an old rambling house to the north of Crucible that looked like it had held his family for generations. The original structure had all but disappeared beneath successive changes and additions that its owners made to make way for their families.
The house resembled some sort of Frankenstein's monster of architectural influences. Some of its walls were covered in wooden siding, others were fashioned from brick, and still others sported jigsaw puzzles of mortared river rock. The roof sloped in different directions as well, forming an odd parapet of opposing angles and rivaling peaks. Despite its odd appearance and questionable architectural merits, Chase found herself admiring the place. It looked like its inhabitants had loved it for many years.
The fact that it belonged to the asshole who’d kidnapped her brother blunted Chase’s admiration but didn't stifle it entirely.
Chase wondered how things might've been different. If her parents hadn't broken the Nightmare Game’s rules and gotten themselves banished. would they have lived in a house like this? Would Chase have been raised around other children like her, instead of living without friends?
“He must be expecting trouble,” Sarah said, shaking Chase out of her maudlin thoughts. “That's every deputy in the county down there.”
They'd parked the van off to the side of the road leading to the sheriff’s house and then crept up to the top of a hill overlooking the place. From her vantage point, Chase could see four squad cars scattered in a loose line across the sheriff's front yard, and a fifth parked across the driveway to blocking access to the property from the main road.
While there were no officers in the cars, as far as Chase could tell, there were eight men near the house, and they’d split into two groups. Four of them wandered around the house in pairs, rotating in opposite directions. The rest of the team sat on the porch, chewing tobacco or smoking cigarettes, and waiting for trouble.
“Yeah, I don't think eight men with guns are going to go down as easy as your friend from the barn,” Chase grumbled, trying to figure out how the hell she was going to get down there without getting shot full of holes. She had a hunch that even her new Slayer abilities wouldn’t keep her alive if she caught a few dozen bullets.
Sarah had flattened herself against the hill, so her blonde hair was hidden behind the tall grass. She parted the blades with her fingers to peer down at the men, but she didn't have anything to offer Chase. “Be careful,” she said, feebly.
They were hunkered down on top of a hill a couple of hundred yards east of the house, most of that distance open ground. There was a thin screen of trees at the bottom of the hill, but Chase didn't know if the scrawny, almost leafless trees would shield her from the deputies’ sight. “All right, spooky Slayer powers, it's time to see how good you really are.”
Chase put her hand on
Sarah's back and said, “Stay put, I'll be back soon enough. If you see trouble, the keys are in the van. Make a run for it.”
Chase didn't know why she'd let the girl off the hook, except that she'd never been able to stand bullies. This whole town was full of assholes who liked to push everyone else around and force them to play their crazy games. Chase didn't care if they were right, if the Red God was real, or not. The fact that they didn't give anyone a choice, the fact that they simply forced everyone into this horror show, made them the worst sort of people. If she could let one of their victims give them the slip, so much the better.
She circled around the hill, walking widdershins from her original position so she could descend the back of the slope out of sight of the sheriff’s house and the deputies guarding it. She moved slowly, doing her best to remain silent. Her plan relied on surprise and misdirection more than brute force, and she needed to stay out of sight until it was time to spring the trap.
At the bottom of the hill, Chase scurried through the shadows to a thicker stand of trees to the right of the house. She reached it without being spotted, and snuggled up behind one of the scrawny trees.
Chase’s hiding spot was only ten yards from the front corner of the house. It gave her a clear view of the porch and the far right side of the house at the same time. She watched the deputies circle around the house, and saw that there was a point in their rotation when all eight men were standing together on the porch.
Ten more minutes passed as Chase waited for the deputies gather on the porch to shoot the shit for a few minutes. None of them were looking her way.
Now or never, she thought, and triggered her newly acquired Phantasm ability. She’d only spent a single bezoar to activate that supernatural power, though, which meant she could only use its simplest effect, the Ghost Lights. The rune in Chase’s Willpower sphere dropped from five to four, and Chase felt a wave of dizziness wash over her.
A thick, moist presence forced itself up and out of Chase’s lungs in a thick mist. The ground-hugging vapor floated away from Chase and drifted across the sheriff’s lawn. Chase directed the scrap of fog with her thoughts, guiding it like a remote-controlled drone so that it drifted past the porch. When the fog passed the deputies, a vivid green glow burst to life within its swirling depths. It cast strange shadows that moved like people or animals, and they grew larger with each passing moment. Within moments, it looked like a group of intruders were loping across the sheriff’s lawn under cover of a rolling fog bank.
Chase felt a second wave of dizzying weakness pass through her body, and knew that the lights were draining her stores of Willpower. She still had three left, but Chase knew she wouldn’t be able to sustain the fog for much longer. She had no idea what would happen when her Willpower finally bottomed out, but she was sure it wouldn’t be good.
The Ghost Lights had the deputies' attention, though, which was all Chase could hope for. Startled, the men watched the bewitching fog roll across the sheriff’s lawn toward the forest on the west side of the property. They hesitated, psyching themselves up, and then left the porch to chase after the apparition as a group.
With its targets’ attention snared, Chase no longer needed to continue concentrating on her Ghost Lights. She let it drift of its own volition, crossing her fingers that it would lead the lawmen on a long and frustrating snipe hunt through the dark woods.
Chase’s head swam, both from the supernatural ability she’d manifested and from surprise at how well her trick had worked. With all the guards gone, she had a clear shot to the back of the house.
Chase didn’t bother with stealth as she approached the house. She sprinted across the grassy lawn and made a beeline for the back corner of the house. She needed to cover the last bit of open ground and get inside the house before the deputies came to their senses. Speed was far more important than being quiet.
Chase darted around the rear of the house and slammed right into another officer who’d been standing guard there, out of Chase’s sight. The collision startled Chase, and she stumbled back, off balance.
The officer turned, his eyes wide, like a rabbit in the moment before a swooping owl strikes. He recovered from the shock before Chase, and immediately fumbled for his gun.
Chase’s hand dropped to her hip, ready to close around her knife. She had a split second remaining before she was either shot or the police officer sounded the alarm.
Her hand reached the spot where her blade always sat, ready and waiting for action.
But the knife wasn’t there.
Chapter Twenty-One
Entering
The deputy smirked at Chase and aimed the revolver at the center of her chest. “You never had a chance,” he sneered.
Time slowed, and Chase watched the weapon in horror as the man’s finger squeezed the trigger. She imagined the roar of the gun, the bullet tearing through her chest and exploding out her back in a geyser of blood and shredded tissue. She imagined the pain, ripping through her body, stealing her life and casting it to the winds.
Not like this, she thought. She reached out to shove the deputy's hand aside, hoping to deflect his shot. The gunshot would be enough to attract the rest of the men, but at least she'd have a fighting chance.
There was a faint hissing noise, and the gun fell to the ground. The deputy's hand fell with it, severed just above the wrist. The deputy stared at Chase, his mouth open in a quivering O. The bloody stump of his forearm quivered in the air between them, the exposed bones gleaming like polished ivory.
Chase looked down at her left hand, and the knife clutched in it. The blade hadn’t been in her pocket when she’d tried to draw it, because it had appeared in her hand the instant she’d needed it.
Before the deputy could recover from his shock and begin screaming, Chase swept the knife’s gleaming blade across his throat. She felt a flicker of remorse, but pushed it aside. If the town hadn't trapped her here, this man would still be alive. And it wasn't as if he hadn't drawn a gun on her first. It was kill or be killed in Crucible, and Chase would be damned before she would die for anyone but her family.
The deputy's remaining hand grasped at his neck, and blood squirted between his fingers to splatter across Chase’s face and chest. When the deputies’ eyes rolled back in his head, Chase caught his shirt and lowered the oozing corpse to the grass, letting the blood drain from severed arteries. As the deputies’ life flickered and faded away, Chase was surprised that no orbs rushed into her pattern and filled her with new energy. He had no aura, she realized. The deputy hadn’t been a Slayer or a Sleeper, just a normal man who’d had the misfortune to get in her way. She’d have to remember that not all kills paid off.
Chase snatched the ring of keys from the lanyard on the officer’s belt with a quick tug. She splayed the keys out in her hands, searching for one that would match the back door’s lock.
With surprise, Chase saw that her knife was gone again. When she’d needed it, it appeared. When she didn’t, it vanished.
But even when the knife wasn’t in her hand, Chase still sensed it, a phantom presence haunting her hand. It was just out of reach, waiting for her. She turned her hand, and the blade reappeared in her fist. She released it, and it vanished before it could fall.
Another benefit of being in the Groovy Slayer Club, Chase thought and dismissed the knife once more.
The officers’ voices drifted back to Chase on the autumn wind. They were still a good distance away, but her Ghost Lights must have run out of steam after Chase had stopped feeding Willpower to them and lost the deputies’ attention. She needed to get in the house, and she needed to get in now.
Chase slotted one key into the lock after another. Sweat broke out across her forehead as each of the keys failed in turn. The men’s voices grew louder as they returned from the snipe hunt she’d sent them on. She needed to get into the house and deal with the sheriff before they could come to his aid. If they found her outside…
Finally, a key turned i
n the lock and the door swung open. Moonlight fell through the opening doorway and revealed a long hall that led to a living room on its far end. The television was on, and Chase saw curling tendrils of blue-gray cigarette smoke drifting through its light. She didn't know who was in the room, or how many of them there might be. Sarah had said all of the deputies were outside, but she’d been wrong about the one hiding behind the house. The sheriff might have decided to keep one of his deputies close to him, just in case. Maybe he even had family members who were ready to stand by his side against any intruders.
Chase eased the door closed behind her and locked it. She slipped the keys into her back pocket to keep them from jangling and willed her weapon into her hand.
She stepped onto the tiled floor of the hallway and held her breath. When her first step didn't creak, she leaned forward and took another step, then another. There was a utility room off to her left, containing a stacked washer and dryer unit, a hot water heater, and not much else. There was another doorway ahead on her right, and Chase heard the hum of a refrigerator and saw the edge of a cluttered counter through the opening. She stole a quick glance as she passed that doorway, and was relieved to find no one waiting to ambush her there.
A closed door on her left, most likely to the pantry, didn't spring open as she approached, and Chase leaned her ear against it to listen for anyone who might be lurking behind it. After a long moment when she heard nothing but her own pulse in her ears, Chase moved on down the hall.
She paused at the threshold of the living room, breathing in the tobacco-tainted air of the sheriff’s home. She peered around the corner to the right, and saw the orange glow of a burning cigarette. It wasn't clenched between a pair of pursed lips or dangling between a couple of yellow-stained fingers. The cigarette was perched on the edge of an ashtray, its tip drooping into the ashes as it burned away.
