Brace yourself; 4,000 words coming your way... There are cuss words in this, but they've been auto blocked, so just ignore them. I had posted this on a more mature site, so this might not be appealing to kids... You will read: Many blocked cuss words, ideologically sensitive material, and one gruesome death scene... Read at your own risk... I crouched and ran to a large opening in the wall of a mountain of rocks. The cold wind blew through the holes of my hockey mask and stung my face. The plastic bags fastened around my ankles had gone loose, so snow began to seep into my shoes. Only a few feet more and I would be able to find refuge for the night. If I found enough drift wood, I would be able to even make a nice camp fire. So I trudged through the snow and collapsed into the natural ditch inside the cave. It appeared a dim void in a large space of nothingness only lit by the bright rays of the outside world. To me, it only seemed like a small indentation, but when I struck the flint of my Zippo, I saw that the dim space of the large cavern led further down, which promised protection from the freezing blasts of frosty wind still digging their way through the entrance. So, holding my lighter high, I traveled further down the black void of the shadowy cavern. I could hear the furious whistling of the brutal winds dimming down to silence as I ventured further down the dark tunnels. The cave walls flanking me began to grow smooth and mossy as I led myself further down the narrow path. The lighter provided only a small tongue of guidance. Often times, I found myself tripping over a contusion on the cave floor, or walking into the side of the cavern. As planned, the further I advanced, the higher the temperature rose, so I continued on until I reached a satisfying degree of warmth. Making myself comfortable in the dim cavern, I burnt a piece of cloth for better illumination as I set up camp and searched for firewood. My search was certainly lucky, as I had found just enough wood for a small camp fire. I set up a stone ring, placed the kindling inside of it, and used the remainder of lighter fluid I had to start up the blaze. I spent the next fifteen minutes adjusting my clothes. I pulled off my shoes and emptied the dirty water out. I replaced my socks and left my shoes to dry beside me. Afterward, I stuck myself into my sleeping bag, setting my iron by my right hand side. I closed my eyes and tried to drift off into the warm hypnosis of sleep. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I woke up about fifteen minutes later. Never could get a decent sum of sleep since I started drifting. A sharp, rusty blade was pressed against my nose. I was still quite at the mercy of fatigue, but I had enough sense to get up, grabbing my pistol as I did so. I was immediately struck in the stomach and pinned, back pressed against the cave wall. A rough, mangled hand gripped my neck, and the blade was thrust up in front of my face, threatening to slice me in half. Or perhaps only cut as bad as a dull machete could. "Drop the side arm, 'fairy'!" A scratchy voice called out to me. Instantly at the mercy of the unknown man, I was forced to do as he insisted, so I dropped the small gun to the cave floor. He relinquished his grip around my neck, and dropped me down. He was extremely strong and had a well maintained grip. It was almost astonishing how powerful he was. He thrust a bright lantern in front of my face, and my eyes winced at the glow. It had silhouetted his face but I could see that his hand was hideously deformed and dark red. The man was no doubt a "gnash". One of the many people transformed by "the glow". Gnash never took too kindly to the fair of skin. That's why they refer to us as "fairies'. I feared he may mistake me for a bounty hunter, so I tried to speak out in opposition, but he cut me off beforehand. "I want you to get up and prove to me that you ain't no gnash hunter, fairy." He demanded of me, still holding his large blade at the ready. I was surprised that he didn't realize the absurdity of his command. Just how do you prove that you aren't something that you aren't? But I did as he told, starting out by getting up. As I did, he pressed his large blade against my stomach. I slowly rose upward until I finally reached a standing position. He stepped into the light, and I was finally able to see his grotesque face and hairless head. I fought back a gag when he opened his mouth to speak, revealing horribly rotten teeth and extremely foul-smelling breath. His face was like a melted latex mask. His nose was sunken in, only leaving a pair of vacant perforations for nostrils. His eyes were red and blood shot like the skin of a ripe, juicy apple which filled a pair of deeply sunken eye sockets. All of his body was tinted with shades of dark brown and fiery red and his back was marked with a black tattoo in a confusingly jumbled pattern. He was garmented in nothing but a long pair of tanned linen jeans, a black leather belt, and the sheath of his corroded blade. In his mouth was a cigar commonly seen sticking out of the mouths of traveling vendors, rolled in birch paper and flavored with easily grown tobacco. Oh, he smelt bad! Like the stench of a dying mammal. It filled my nostrils and made me sick to my stomach as he got closer to me. Commonly, he switched his cheap cigar from one side of his mouth to another, revealing his appalling teeth and unsparingly blemished tongue. He looked me up and down, by the light of the shimmering lantern. He dropped the blade from my stomach and stuck it into his animal skin sheath. Opening his grisly mouth, he began to speak in his scratchy accent. "Come on, fairy, I ain't got all day. Show me you ain't a hunter. Gain my trust." I didn't even understand the importance of assuring him I wasn't a damn hunter. Would he kill me if I was, or just unwelcome me? I tried to look sincere as I finally replied to my impatient adversary. "Clarify just exactly how I could do this, please." I asked of him, as he crossed his arms, making a barrier in front of him. He lifted up one of his repugnant hands to his face and pulled out the conventional cigar, holding it between his index and middle finger. He spit out the pieces that broke off in his mouth onto the cave floor. The sight was absolutely vile, but I had seen worse days. He held the cigar in front of my face, as if showing it off. "Here's an idea. Why don't we share a light. Ain't nothin' like a nice cigar to keep warm in this dank cave." He spoke to me. I suppose that really that was the best way to prove it. No anti-gnash xenophobe would ever, under any circumstances share a smoke with a gnash, and it was only the real prejudiced types that actually hunted them. I suppose it's a pride thing. Although, the idea of putting what he had in his horrid mouth into mine was still quite revolting, I had put worse things in my mouth on a daily basis. I grabbed the cigar, and took a few friendly puffs, myself, looking quite bold. The gnash was happy with me, judging by his otherwise satisfied expression. He patted me on the back in approval of my presence, and began to speak contently with me. "Not bad, fairy! Name's Billy. Billy Redacre. Good ta know ya!" He held out his hand in a promise for a firm shake. I responded reasonably by shacking back and replied to his comment. "Not bad yourself. I'm Jim… Campion."\ Well, it is simply amazing how tricky a cave can be when you eventually reach a fork in the road. You'll merely trust your instinct and take the left tunnel, but then another fork comes, and you find yourself having to choose between three different passageways. You decide to turn back, but find that you took a turn which only leads you deeper into the winding, snaking caverns. Trying to find your way out, you drop into a pitfall and bust a limb. You can't move your leg, so you set up camp, trying to maintain your dwindling kerosene and food rationings. You gaze in horror when your lamp starts dying, and leaves you isolated in the dark, strange caverns. You spend your last hours slowly dying in hunger and isolation, just waiting to kick the bucket, until you here the squeak of a tunnel rat. Then the war cries of hundreds more. You close your beat eyes and just wait for the vile creatures to devour you until you simply die, slowly and painfully. The tunnel rats. One of the only three mammals present on this pitiful planet. Rats, just as gnash, suffer horrible deformities and monstrous transformations. However, their irregularities, unlike the common gnash, involve immense trauma to the intellect of the carnivorous mammals, as well as increasing their size by tenfold. Or at least to the size of a juvenile bulldog. I, myself had never had an experience with these gruesome beasts, but I've heard a great deal of tales spun around many a bar room about their horrid teeth, and furless bodies. I was once told by a mercenary in a rusty old bar going by the name of "The Tin Can", that they live deep in sewers, grave yard tunnels, and caves, and leave at night to find a rotting corpse left abandoned in the ruined city streets. Their teeth are sharper than a filed knife, and can penetrate a human skull. Their eyes are deep and red with the ability to see twice as sensitive as the human eye. Some 'mercs' have even reported rats as big as trucks! I had a feeling that most of these tales were taller than a sky scraper, but I had no doubt to the existence of mutated vermin living under ground. I feared I may have an encounter with the illustrious beasts if I went too far down, but my new acquaintance, Billy, guaranteed me that the existence of the vermin was no more than a drunken tale discerned by intoxicated fools. Whether there were rats or not, I stayed close to Billy and kept my firearm at the ready. Billy was following a long line of soot marked along the floor of the grotto. A classic… Um… Was it Hercules who did that? I can barely recollect any Ancient Greek tale about monsters and ruins, anymore. As far as I'm concerned, they hit way to close to home. But it was definitely a smart idea for any would-be "spelunker". We traveled a good long distance before we reached a point in the cave which was covered by a flap of tanned animal skin. He removed the cloth and introduced to me his fine little home. It was small, but well decorated with bones and jars filled with rocks and sand there for decorations sake, I suppose. He set the lantern on his table and began igniting candles and lanterns set around his small den. I unpacked my bindle and set up a bed by his welcoming fireplace. We sat around the radiant blaze and ate our meals together. Mine mainly assorted of broth and dead bugs. While eating, we began to strike up conversations and recall old songs from before the new days. It was good to share thoughts with someone I knew. He was Someone honest. I mixed my crickets in with the broth and made a surprisingly pleasant soup. Billy bit off a shot of tobacco and stuck it in his jaw. He chewed a bit before starting up a decent conversation with me. "How's life been above ground, fairy?" He asked me as he spit out the grimy bits of the chewing plant. I countered his question with one of my own. "How's life been underground?" I asked him, myself. "How long have you lived down here?" Billy brought up the bone of some animal and began to pick at his teeth with it. "Nine years, fairy. Nine years." I was slightly shocked at the amount of time he had spent under the Earth. I replied once more with another question. "What did you do about food? Water?" Billy spit out the entire shot onto the cave floor and swallowed his saliva. He let out a sigh of apprehension before he began to speak. "You really wanna know fairy?" I nodded my head in agreement. "Alright then. Here goes." Billy sighed, once more. "Twelve--Thirteen--I don't know--Maybe ten years ago, I got sick somethin' awful with Flu. I was 21 at the time, and where I was at, the hospital treated youngsters first, so I got a ****ty bed in the hallway with no place to puke, but all o'er myself." A few days after, I was certain I was going to die. But some dumb *** human rights group thought that it would be awful moral of them if they got a bunch of patients and treated them themselves. So basically, they kidnapped 12 or 15 "rad sickies", including myself." However, these ****ing morons didn't know that once you enter a quarantined zone, you can't ****ing leave, so the military bombed their little trucks, but I was apparently lucky enough to just get ran into a ditch." It was at that time, that Washington, that's where I lived, got itself bombed. I was part of the 1/3 of the sickly population that turned into a- eh- you know. I got left as a monster." Well, scientists got on us faster than ants on honey. But they classified it as nothing different than Elephant Man syndrome, just not taking place during birth. We were all sent to a Gnash refugee camp in Massachusetts. The months we spent there were in squalor and filth, but we managed until some 'Attila the Hun' **** bag led a troupe of mercenaries and caused the 'Boston Ghoul Massacre'. The first anarchy rain after the bombs fell." I remember that day. People stormed through, tearing us to pieces. A pall of mine, Docboy was his name, got literally quartered by this **** face that deemed himself a Hun. God damn it was--" It seemed difficult for Billy to finish. So he didn't. I was getting tired, so I tucked myself into my sleeping bag, leaving my pistol beside me. It then occurred to me that Billy had not answered my question, but I didn't bother asking why. I simply closed my eyes and tried to drift off into a deep sleep. "What the ****?!" I said gazing upon the brutalized and mutilated remains of at least 20 corpses scattered around the floor of the cave. There was a perforation through every skull and every stomach, followed by dark stains of blood on the sides. Corpse flies surrounded the entire room, filling my ears with an incessant buzzing as they flew around sucking on the juices of the rotting cadavers. My stomach began to swell and my mouth was soon filled with my vomit. I threw my guts up, at the site. "Mother of God!" I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on. It was as if I had opened my eyes and just been revealed the appalling spectacle. I looked behind me and saw Billy standing with a satisfied smirk on his face, stretching ear to ear. "Billy… what the hell is this?" I asked him apprehensively, wiping the vomit from my lips. "What the hell is going on?" "This is how I survived, if you truly want me to answer your question, fairy. These are the things I have lived off of for the last thirteen years of my extremely bigoted life." He answered me with his slightly cunning gnash appeal. In plain words, I could tell he had spelled out to me that his whole life underground had revolved around cannibalism. "How did you… get them…?" I asked him, absolutely horrified. "Every other week or so, I reach a point where, at night, I can go out without suffering the effects of the light bouncing off the God damn moon. Only a mile or so off, there's a little settlement with a stout little population. I can go into there and kill a few people off, take 'em back to my cave, and I can make that last three months." He said as he explained to me what he does to maintain his criterion. The words that came from his mouth fell to my ears and slapped me with cruel as hell irony. A man I trusted had ended up being the most ****ed up being I had met in months. "Sometimes, when I'm in luck, I can find a nice, well stocked caravan passing through my gulch. Once I got me five caravaners, two dogs, and whole pack of supplies. I made that last me quite a bit." I looked back at the corpses who seemed to stare at me with sympathy. While most of these people had been kidnapped and murdered in their beds, I had walked right in, might as well have been served on a silver plate with gravy. Of all the messes I've made since I abandoned the safe havens, this was the most degrading in ways that made me kick myself with a steel toed boot. Good God, I was dying at the hands of a ghoulifed cannibal. Bigots everywhere would be disappointed. "Something tells me you've never been to Glendale Oaks." He said to me. I began weeping as I kneeled down on my hands and knees. "I've made quite a name for myself here. 'Billy the Butcher', 'Redacre the boy baker', all kinds of degrading names. But did I earn them? Yeah. I probably did." I looked through the corpses resting on the bloody cave floor. Some were only three feet in height, some were obviously women, I could see by the remaining skin that some of them were of different races and colors, and to my astonishment and horror amongst the piles were fellow gnash! I knew I held no exception even though Billy never said he was going to kill me. I reached to my side, but found no side arm. I guess that kind of made sense. "Why didn't you kill me at the cave entrance?" I asked him. "Why did you let me live?" "You had shoes, an escape route, and a gun. Well, more like shoes and an escape route. Why would I try to get you before we got into the tunnels? It makes sense." "And in my bed? Why not while I slept?" I asked him. My words fell on deaf ears. All I could think was that he wanted me to see what he did to his others, and inevitably **** with my head. I saw that Billy had placed his lantern on the head of some large stone. I got up, and turned towards him. In his hand, he had my pistol. I stared him down for a few seconds. He stared me down right back. After what dragged by like hours, Billy readied my gun, and I made a lunge to his lantern. A gun shot was heard and darkness filled the room… The butterfly flew gently through the dewy morning air. What a beautiful day, it was. The clouds were parted, and the sun shown bright over the valley of melting snow and sleet. Winter was coming to an end and Spring was coming to embrace the world with warmth. It drifted and floated from place to place in peace, and gently flew to a small rock, standing amongst a grotto buried in the snow. It batted its wings once, than a couple more times, and soon made peace, sitting on the rock in the sun's warm glow. After sitting for a few minutes, it drifted off of the rock and just in the center of the entrance of the cave, where it drifted peacefully gliding from side to side, inspecting the dark cave. Boom! A lightning swift projectile flew past the butterfly. It flew away from the cave, but within a second, another projectile cracked forward, this time killing the butterfly, altogether. I ran out of the cave, blinded by the almost forgotten sun. I ignored it, and ran forward, shoeless through the icy sleet. Blood drizzled profusely through a crevice in my arm, bandaged by torn cloth and my own hair. I slid down the frozen hill, constantly being pelted by rocks in the snow. Billy, the cannibal ghoul, tailed behind me. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" He yelled when the sun burned his sensitive eyes. He had been blinded by the intense rays of the liberated sun. He fell down the hill, himself, and was treated as I was, until the two of us had found level ground. I got up and ran out of Billy's grabbing scope, as he drew his large blade, and trekked after me. Despite being blind, he could make out my blurred image, and chased after my silhouette. I ran into a quarry of boulders, as he violently and aggressively swung his blade my way, and at everything in front of him. "Stop moving, you ****ing pussy before I tear you a third ****ing *******!" Billy said, as he constantly tripped on rocks perched in the ground. He followed me into the quarry, and I was eventually at the edge of his intimidating blade. "****!" I shouted as it tore a clean hole through the back of my shirt, cutting my back, as well. "Ha, ha! Looks like I found you, you ****ing smooth skinned, coward!" I tried to coagulate my blood flow, as I tromped through the quarry, away from him. I had finally left his reach, and I stayed hidden, as he shouted unapproachable comments. "C'mon out, fairy, I'll be gentle! I promise I won't hurt you!" I began to trail behind him, he not being the wiser. "C'mon, dammit! I give you my word! Come out now. You know, it really makes you a coward to be hiding in the snow like a little ****. You giving me all this **** about killing, cowardly, you're a ****ing hypocrite! Get the **** out, you ****ing charlatan!" After trailing him for some time, we came upon a gulch where he stopped, most likely aware of its presence. "Here kitty, kitty! Come out now!" "Hey Billy," I said to him, from behind. He turned around, and almost dropped his blade, in surprise. "Here I am." I said, rather boldly. I jumped on him, and we rolled down the gulch. I had the advantage of grabbing his neck, and squeezing with all of my might, which was hard to do, with a dead arm. We landed with a crash and a clutter of snow, making me release my grip. He punched me in the cheek, and I flew onto my back. With poor coordination, he lunged at me again, and broke his hand on a large rock, letting out an ear flitting scream. I struck him in the face, and squeezed his neck, once more. I bashed his head onto a rock, knocking him unconscious, and I commenced repeating my action. "How's that Billy?! I'm out! How's that?!" His head began to spit, and blood spattered in every direction. "You want to eat something, well eat that, you mother ******!" With each lunge, his neck split more and more, until his head cracked off altogether, rendering him decapitated. I fell onto my back, and congealed the blood flow from my nose. "***hole…" I lamely mumbled, as I lay in the snow, it lessening the pain of the scar on my back. "…***…hole…" And then, I felt the muzzle of a gun press against the back of my head. "Freeze, bigot!" I heard from a scratchy, abrasive voice. I don't plan on continuing this, but I might! We'll see...
I wanna make it clear, I wrote this a good three years ago! So if it's bad, there's my little excuse!
