|
Your mind will be destroyed This article (Night of the Living Rust), or a section of this article, deals with mature content or language. Though nothing one couldn't find on the internet anyways, we felt it necessary to warn you. |
Amazon Jungle, somewhere in Brazil
Red Monkey was woken up by a scream.
It wasn't part of the constant babble of noise that the animals of the jungle made, but the scream that come from human throats even if one might mistake it for an animal so full of pure fear and despair. He was fully awake in a heartbeat, darkness surrounding him. He sat upright, listening carefully for any sound. There was none. It was silent. Upon realizing Red Monkey twitched. Even at night there was a multitude of animals moving and hunting. There should be, but there was none. Suddenly a shuffling.
The shuffling of feet moving through the grass of the clearing around the village. And the sound made by liquid dripping on leaves. He went up on his feet and searched for his club. He found it and took a firm grip. Slowly he approached the opening of his hut and stepped out into the moonlight.
A lone figure stood there out in the open. It was Yellow Frog, a young warrior of his tribe. He was utterly still, his body arched, every now and then in a spastic pose. Red Monkey called out to him. He did not respond, but instead slowly turned around. Yellow Frog's hollow, unseeing gaze met with Red Monkeys´ terrified stare. Yellow Frog's eyes stared the unrelenting stare of the dead. As Yellow Frog stared at him, Red Monkey realised what he had become: one of the Possessed, doomed meither to walk the afterlife nor to burn in the underland, these truly pitiful creatures were those monstrous souls judged by the spirits to walk the jungle forevermore. But Yellow Frog had done no wrong. Granted, he was an annoying prick, but that wasn't reason enough to levy the curse of the Possessed upon him.
He was missing his lower jaw, and blood dripped from the gaping maw that remained. A jagged gash exposed his innards to the outside world. Beside him lay the corpse of his mate, Green Frog, her once-pretty face flensed of flesh, her grinning bloody skull staring to the night sky. A low moan escaped the maw of the young teen, and slowly began to stumble towards him. Red Monkey raised his club, adrenaline beginning to pump through his veins. The moan grew louder, and Yellow Frog began to jog toward the elder. He gathered speed and the moan turned to a hungry howl. Then he sprinted and Red Monkey acted instinctively. He swung the club in a long arc at the head of his charging opponent. Upon contact with the heavy object, the thing's skull burst like an overripe fruit falling onto stone. The body twitched one last time and fell to the ground. But some of the slime stuck to the club. It tried to crawl up the club. He shook his club in disgust and the goo flew away, vanishing in the high grass. As the adrenaline ebbed away, Red Monkey realized what he had just done: he had taken the life of a tribe member. A wave of nausea came over him. He wasn't exactly friendly with the younger ones of his tribe, but still they had been one tribe, one giant family. And he had killed one of them.
Another scream ripped through the night. Red Monkey looked around.
No one was there.
Not even the cadaver that was Green Frog answered him. It had vanished, leaving only a trail of blood. A second scream answered the first.
A third voice came up, sleepily asking what was going on, only to be cut off and remerge as a blood-curdling shriek. More and more screams answered the howl. More and more Possessed tumbled out of the huts around him. Red Monkey turned left, running into the hut of the chieftain. Three human forms stood inside the elaborate hut. Two children of the Sun in their strange clothes, and the Chieftain... All of them were bloodied, standing around in absurd, broken poses.
Red Monkey cried out in despair. And the three turned around answered him with their souless gazes, as a spear would down a monkey. And without further warning they charged him. This time he was prepared, the despair and anger giving him power. He smote the head of the first with a powerful overhead blow, nearly beheaded the second Sunchild when he brought his club up on the chin. Last came the Chieftain, he broke the neck of the eldest with a uphand swing from the right. The body went limp, yet the chin continued to move. But then it stopped and the same goo that had stuck to his club before now came from the nose of the dead. Actually three lumbs of something crawled around in the grass, as if they didn´t know what to do. In that moment a girl came out of a nearby hut, Red Monkey immediately shouted at her to run, but she just stared at the dead bodies and in the next heartbeat the gray lumbs bounded at her. They stuck to her face her fingers simply slipping through them without any effect. Slowly the goo pressed itself into her mouth, nose and eyes, while she slowly fell to her knees. Then she collapsed in a shudder the grey slime vanishing in her body. She cried blood. The screams had ceased. His tribe, the children of the Moon, were dead, no worse they were possessed by most violent and evil meaning spirits that would only leave the body upon destruction. It could not be, it must not! Somebody had to survive this, other than himself! The Totem tree! It was holy ground and stable enough to carry a man or more, although normally only the shaman would climb up. The spirits would not be able to reach someone there, and in the morning the dark magic would be broken by the sun! So he ran out in the bushes between the high trees, the moaning and howling mass of possessed behind him, he could hear their footsteps.
The first bit of the holy clearing came into view, he wanted to look back but if he would do that, he could easily trip. With no alternative left he ran on straight. Now he could see the tree with it´s charactaristic white bark. Something scratched his arm and Red Monkey went into deadsprint. He reached the clearing, passed the totem-fence and first stopped when he nearly slammed himself into the trunk. He needed a little while to catch breath then he turned around. The unholy creatures that had been his tribe stood at the edge of the clearing halfway encircling it.
Until one of them took a step onto the clearing. And another one,. Slow and purposeful the Possessed, it was a child of the sun, walked toward him. Red Monkey went white, that thing should not have been able to break the threshold of the holy place. A second figure stepped in and a third and a fourth. More and more of them began to move. Now Red Monkey had only one last resort: the high branches of the holy tree. He let go off the club and started climbing. The bark was smooth in most places but there were a few that allowed a good grip. He´d seen the shaman climb the tree often enough to find them. He had come to around two mens´ height off the ground when the scratching began. Yet he did not quite know what was its cause before he got to the lowest branch and set down on it to finally get a bit of rest. The possessed obviously were not good at climbing so all they could do was claw on the trunk without getting anywhere.
Upon seeing that he was out of immediate danger Red Monkey allowed himself to calm down and had a look around. The tree was completely surrounded and more swarmed from the jungle, most of them children of the sun. The higher branches were lit by the moonlight. Two pairs of small eyes stared at him. It were the star twins: Blue Star and White Star. They sat around three mens´ height above him and seemed shocked to see him still alive. Then it came to his mind that he must have looked frightening with the blood splattered all over him. He told them he was all right and they would not have to be afraid as the whole haunt would be over in the morning. They did not answer, but simply turned away and slouched together on the branch leaning on the trunk and fell asleep. Red Monkey felt a bit tired too as the previous stress took its toll. He allowed his tiredness to take control, his feet dangling left and right off the branch and with the back to the trunk. Eventually he began to sleep.
A to short time later Red Monkey was ripped from his not-yet-dreams again. The whole tree was shaking, the twigs at the top waving wild. The twins were awake too shivering. It was still in the dead of night with sunrise far away, but the moonlight was still granting him a good view of the scene.
The tree was still surrounded by the Possessed but they had given up on trying to climb up, now instead they tried to bring the tree down. It was as if the horde had become a single large being, waves travelled from the outline to the bodies in the center, which crashed into the bark with impossible force. The wood made cracking noises yet the bodies of the possessed did not seem to be impaired in any way. They just kept it coming. A load crack went through the air and and likewise through the massive wood. The tree cringed a bit.
At this rate it would come down before sunrise. And what would happen than was something Red Monkey really did not want to find out.
The next crack went through the tree. Underneath the crackling a new sound appeared, unlike anything he had heard yet. It was a bit like the fluttering of wings, but steadier and harder. And faster. The sound grew louder, it came closer, it was now clearly audible over the possessed slamming against the tree. Suddenly a light bright as the sun appeared over the tops of the trees around and a human voice boomed over the fluttering noise.
Red Monkey could not understand a single word, but he was sure it was the language of the children of the sun. The light turned and shone on the possessed. Nothing happened, they continued to batter the old tree. But now he could see the origin of the light and the noise and the voice: a strange construct that held six children of the sun, two in the front part near the light and four figures in heavy clothes and with giant sticks in their hands. The voice boomed again and then after it showed no effect again the men in the rear part threw stones or similar small objects into the horde below all of them leaving trails of biting smoke. On the ground the smoke billowed out and enveloped them but again nothing changed. A new crack ripped through the wood and this time the tree bowed dangerously far to the ground. The voice boomed a last time like an angry god and a few seconds later a new noise was present. Like thunder it struck his ears, a long flame came licked from the end of a stick connected to the main construct, long sparks streaked out and where they hit the horde the possessed were ripped apart. The killing streak wandered randomly through them. Red Monkey could not really enjoy it: because apart from his tribe getting turned to bits, the tree began a steady tilt, coming closer and closer to the ground.
Half of the possessed were extinguished when the tree fell fast and the first twigs and branches touched the ground. The twins and Red Monkey fell to the ground and the first bodies jerkishly moved towards them. The first one nearly reached him, when a big clothed foot heavily sunk into thee ground in front of his face. A hammering roar, and the upper half of the possessed dissolved into red mist. From behind a hand grabbed for Red Monkeys shoulder and lifted him to his feet. He turned around to look into the face of one of the men clad in blue and green. Another one just shoved the twins into the construct and Red Monkey followed them, where ever they went he would go with them.
The man behind him screamed: a lumb of goo stuck to his face and was rippling against his face. With a swipe of his hand he tossed it into the darkness and thrust his stick into the face of the next possessed. The construct began to move upwards and the two men still standing on the earth backed away from the remains of the horde. Finally they too got onto the construct, which then got faster and faster and then the clearing had vanished in the relative darkness of the moonlit night.
They were safe.
Unnoticed by anyone in the Cardinal Helicopter, a small piece of grey slimy substance loomed in the darkest corner of the passenger compartment.