Chapter 7: Chapter 7: What Feeds in the Dark

The store that Henry had worked at for so long now lay in a state of ruin. Massive shelves topppled over like a line of dominos.

Riley coughed beside him.

"Do you need a drink?" Henry asked.

"What do you think?" she said softly.

Julio swiped a finger at the open air in front of him. "What's a prestige point?"

"It's a power up." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I think that's what you would call it."

Riley didn't correct him, she just stared at ground near her feet.

Henry opened his mouth. He sighed. For a moment he just stood there, the silence growing between them. He would face down a monster for her. But his past self...? His cowardly actions?

He would have to face them too. Suffer the consequences.

Henry looked over, waiting for her to meet his gaze. "I'm sorry," he said.

She nodded to herself, releasing a sudden exhale. "She wasn't much of a mother anyway."

He blinked. "I..." He could relate. "My father hadn't been much of a man either."

***

Henry made his way along the toppled pallet racks. A obscene amount of blood spread out from where the Hungered One bled to death.

"Sheesh," Julio said. "Was that a person or somethinga?"

"I think it might have been before all of this," Henry said, climbing into his seat.

He backed up, pulling the bloodied forks free. Once Julio and Riley were in their spots, he felt the odd instinct to check his watch. 9:59 AM

It ticked upward. At that moment the entire store fell pitch black. The faintly blue exterior of the forklift lit a small area around them.

Henry froze, assuring his friends to keep calm and quiet with a reasuring touch. Their breaths were loud. His heart pounded like a drum. After about thirty seconds, Henry felt it was safe enough to go.

He turned around to head toward the arcade.

***

Riley's pink hair fluttered behind her. The shadows were as deep as the oceans depths. They suffocated what little light the forklift produced, glittering blue rays dancing outward in defiance.

Riley should have felt a lot of things. Instead, she felt relief.

She was relieved that her mother was finnaly dead.

It was a festering rotten tooth ripped free from her gums. Excrutiating. But the pain would only wane from this point on.

Pink and blue lights danced out of the entrance ahead like some kind of rave show.

Riley leaned against the large man beside her. She could feel the tension in his body. He couldn't accept that she had forgiven him so easily. It wasn't like he had known it was her mother outside that door. Had it been anyone else, would she have argued in favor of openining it?

She thought not.

Pulsating neon lights came in to view as the forklift turned into the arcades. Trumpets blaired. Big drums thumped. And the distorted voices of a chorus mixed into the rest.

It was singularly the most disquieting music she had ever heard.

"You didn't mention anything about this," she said.

"I didn't know how to explain it."

A pulsing of darkness passed through the arcade machines, traveling into the place behind the tall windows. With each pulse, the light brightened within that space. Henry drove closer, giving them a closer look.

Riley stared at the TVs. Mezmorized. And the pillar. Several TVs had condensed into a octahedradon shape. When the energy throbbed, the TVs contracted into a tighter shape. Octopus tendrils holding up the shape, the column of wires and stuff below it.

"Is it some kind of computer?" Henry asked.

Riley rose from her seat to walk up to the clean glass. "Maybe. I think we're looking into another reality. And that thing." She pointed to the pillar. "That's what destroyed alternate America."

"Then what are we doing, gaucha! Let's go."

"No," Henry said. "We should destroy it." His heavy steps traveled toward the lone door set between the windows.

"Wait," Riley said.

Henry looked back. "I'm done being afraid. If it puts us in danger-"

"Look!"

Where the dark tentancles spread out from the base, dark goop formed a puddle. The surface of that liquid bulged. The shape of a human head began to rise upward from the goop, features concealed like a ghost beneath a sheet.

Henry pivoted on his feet, striding back to the forklift. He didn't need to say a word, Riley nearly jumped onto her spot beside him. Had the man noticed how close she made her body to his own?

The wheels spun out, tires bumping softly over the wires that crisscrossed the floor. After a moment they were far enough that she could relax.

Riley glanced at her essence bar.

88%

Much help it would be to her. The system had selected Writing as her Specialty. So much that Riley had wanted to become an author, she was terrible at writing, and she hadn't discovered any way to use the specialty so far.

She hadn't written anything to be fair.

Maybe she could at least try? No. Her mother had convinced her she never would suceed at writing. Everyone else she ever became close with over the years had only reinforced the idea. She was just a stupid slut in their eyes. Until someone proved her wrong, she felt inclined to believe it.

She shifted slightly in her seat. Henry would feel that. He would prove her right.

Then there was her Petryfying Scream skill. She wasn't exactly sure why the system had granted it to her, other than the fact that she had screamed a lot over the duration of her miserable life. At least that one had a use. She'd put her prestige point in it.

The forklift slowed down.

"Just great," Henry said. "I should have finished it off."

"What?" Riley asked.

"All the Faceless I killed. One of them was combining the pieces into something called a Conjoined."

Riley followed the trail of white blood that trickled deeper in the depths of the arcades. Her gaze pierced the gaps between flashing machines, searching for a mass of plastic arms and heads.

"These Faceless. Maybe it's better if we don't kill them?" Riley said. "That way they can't form bigger mobs."

Henry sighed. "Another failure of mine. I'm sorry."

She sat up. "Get over yourself. What's done is done, dude." The forklift lurched to a stop behind the counter of a pizzeria.

She hopped out of her seat, glancing at Henry. He seemed to be searching for the right words. When would he realize that nobody... Maybe she did care a little. He did save her life twice.

"Thank you," she said.

He blinked at her. "What?"

"For saving my life again."

"Aye gancho. I appreciate it too," Julio said.

Henry nodded. That seemed to pucker him up a bit. He lifted his large body out the seat. He was well muscled but had that beer belly that made him seem fluffier. More Gentle.

He pointed. "There's drinks in there and pizzas on the floor behind the counter."

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"Oh yummy. Floor pizza."

Riley swallowed, feeling her dry cracked throat. It stung, prompting a wave of moisture in her eyes. She'd gone what? Half a day without any fluids? Well. She was bad about drinking anything before that, which made it worse.

Riley made her way over, grabbed a cardboard cup, and pressed it against the small lever.

Nothing.

"What the hell," she said, testing each one, including the ice. "I thought you said you found something to drink?"

"The power isn't 100%. I'm sure the drinks are still in there." Henry walked over to inspect the machine.

He undid some latches then opened it up. Inside, the drink containers were empty.

"How?" Henry said. "It couldn't have evaporated in this time!"

"Little nano bots carried it away. Or maybe a small interdimesional portal opened inside each containor, draining away the fluids," Riley said. "They're enforcing rules upon us. We'll need to find an active resturant."

Henry sighed.

"Aye, gancho! There's no food either."

Henry slammed the counter with a fist, a smokey red glow sifting off of his hand. He shook his head.

"Relax... We'll find something," Riley said.

He glanced in the direction of the bathrooms they'd first entered the area from. Riley could read his mind.

"I'm not drinking from a toilet," she said.

And I don't want to see the corpse of my narcistic mother either.

"Let's find somewhere else," Henry said. "Whatever was happening back there, I don't want to stay anywhere near this area. I think it's time we move on."

Riley nodded. "I couldn't agree more."

***

Henry drove them deeper into the unknown. While the arcades had started off as a huge hallway, now it expanded in all directions. Maybe it wasn't every arcade in the entire world. But it was a lot of them.

The lights dimmed. A great wave of shadow passing through the area. Those people in another world. They had lost to themselves. What did that mean? Like a civil war?

Even though they'd covered a great distance from that place wires and TVs. Henry couldn't help but feel that they we're nowhere near being in the clear.

Riley pinched his arm. "Slow...!"

Henry turned sharply. Hiding the vehicle behind an arcade machine. At last they'd found another active resturant.

The smell of burgers made his stomach rumble. The Faceless worked tireleslly. The recognizable yellow frenchies with a smiling burger that formed the franchises symbol.

Burger Fry. The place where burgers go to die.

Kind of a morbid catch phrase, but it always made people laugh. The commericials often consisted of burgers screaming as people ate them alive. It always disturbed him to be honest, but the food was consistent.

"How the hell can we face three of those things?" Riley asked.

Henry cringed at her use of a certain word. "Maybe we can sneak in the back?"

"For some reason, I doubt they would let it be so easy."

"Right. It being a raid and all." Henry shook his head. "Why did these aliens modle this place around MMOs anyway?"

Riley bit her lip. "Because of Chaos Theory."

"What?"

"In an infinite universe, all possible arrangements of matter within a given section of space will eventually be realized. Including the very one we are looking at. We just happened to be lucky enough to be on the version of earth where eldritch space aliens decided to form a massive dungeon. Maybe they find it entertaining? I don't know."

Henry pointed at heavy monsters. "Maybe I can lead them away on my forklift, while you guys grab the food and drinks?"

Riley nodded. "I guess."

"Would you rather drive?"

"No. I just don't know if that's a good idea. We know they are blind. But are they deaf too? They didn't respond to use driving up."

"Maybe they have gook in their ears, you know?" Julio said. "You had to shout at mi papa for him to hear a word!"

"We should test it," Riley said. She looked around. She kneeled down, picking up a half drinking glass of booze. "Looks like this arcade was part of a bar." She pulled it back behind her head, making Henry's heart lurch, and she tossed the glass far to the left of the monsters.

The glass shattered, spilling the drink.

Two of the Hungered Ones turned. Their rasped breaths turning into an almost growling sound. They rose to their feet to inspect the source of the noise. The other one remained in its seat.

"The forklift won't make enough sound on its own."

He needed a pan. Something he could strike over and over. He could double back to one of the abandonded resturants. He was certain they'd have something of the sort. He relayed the idea to Riley. She shook her head.

"That won't work with the big one," she said. "Must I be the one to state the obvious?"

Henry frowned. "I drive right past it, striking it as I go by. That would do it."

"And it would piss the thing off. It might wander off in the right direction."

Henry rubbed his chin. "What about the one that was attacking you in Shopmart. How did it know you were up there?"

"We we're killing Faceless. Once a lot of them showed up, the Hungered One came charging in. It knew exactly where to look. The Hungered Ones must share senses with the Faceless. So we'll probably want to avoid being seen by them when we go in..."

Henry nodded. "So what's your plan?"

"They seem to go by smell more than anything. So we give them something to eat."

She couldn't mean... Henry muttered a pray to himself. "Where can we find the bate?"

Riley gave him a look. "It's where you can find it. Go back to the bathrooms and take one of the bodies..."

"You're sure?"

"Yes," she snapped. "I don't have to see it either. Just place it somewhere out there and it should give us plenty of time to loot the food and water."

"We need containers," Henry said. "I haven't seen any water jugs, but there's bunch of XXL drink cups at the chicken wing store."

"Me an Julio will collect some cups and plastic bags to stuff the food inside. You can go do the other thing..."

Henry placed a hand on her shoulder. "Be carefull. I'll contact you when I get back."

"Don't get eaten," Riley said with warm blue eyes.

"One more thing," Henry said.

Riley cocked her head. Henry lifted some up from the back of the forklift.

He handed her the red firefighter's axe. "Only use it if you must. If multiple of them come after you. You run." Henry surveyed the area. "See that giant tiger? Run there. If I circle back and don't find you here, I'll know to go there. If I'm still not around, go to the bathrooms and lock yourself inside."

Riley shook her head, pink hair waving into her face. "It won't come to that. But yeah, we'll go there if we must."

Henry looked forward. "The Faceless didn't attack me untill I hit them. Keep that in mind. Are you all set?"

Julio grabbed his pistol. "Aye amigo. Let's get going."

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