Shades of Fear ~ 4 - Paralyze

     The Lusted have this gift that if you stare into their eyes that all of your desires will be known to them.  Some use that to there advantage and are able to get the most pleasure experience with a price, while others could use it to control weak minded people to do their bidding.  When a Lusted stared into your eyes, it was suppose to feel like pure bliss.  They were her weapons.  

     However, when emotions are high within either person of this stare, it could easily backfire.

     Captain could see her worry, her feelings, and her memories of when they met after the Shadow King disappeared.  He could remember in the smoke filled streets, he found her hurt and helped her recover.  He could remember her name and could even remember that she was a housewife to someone, but didn't know who.  She alone was the only one to call him by a name, but unfortunately, that was all she could remember.  They were close ever since, even after she started to turn into a Lusted.

     That's why she always blindfolded herself when she was near Captain.

     But as he stared into her eyes without flinching, he couldn't feel anything except her breathing and the smell of cherry lime from her still wet body.

     Then Evita started crying and had to turn away from his stare. 

     Captain sat up and held her tightly as she started to sob silently in his arms.  He was used to seeing her confident, flirty, and even vicious sometimes when she was hungry.  But he hadn’t seen her cry often.

     "Don't go," she repeated quietly to him.  "You don't need to go.  You don't need to know."

     "I don't," he whispered back.  "But I think you do."

     She looked at him as he stared back into her eyes and started to kiss her.

     And for that moment, all Captain could taste was cherry lime.

     Evita stayed until Captain started to get ready to leave, and then she quickly put on her rag like dress and started out the door before Captain could even get pants on.
     They said their usual goodbye when Captain went on trips like this.
     "Stay safe," she said.
     "I will, as long as you do." he replied as they smiled to each other.  And with that she was gone, once again headed to the streets. 
      Captain didn't worry that much when she left, since he knew she could handle herself.  But there was a slight nagging feeling that he should have done something more for her.  But that feeling passed as he started to dress and could feel the sore spots that were made from earlier last night.
      "Damn woman, you're going to be the death of me if the monsters don't get me first."  He said jokingly to himself.  It didn't cheer him up as much as he wanted it to. 
     Besides his usual heavy cloth jeans that he wore, he also had a simple black shirt laid with his ammo belt and holster for his gun.  He finished dressing by putting on his dark brown duster that was padded with leather protection for blades and bites, and headed out of the room and out into the street.
     Salric was outside of the Sleeper's Hotel, of course. He didn't have a cloak on this time, showing off his entire body cover in black shiny bandages, with an ammo belt across his chest and stomach.  Behind him was a long rifle that Captain knew he was a dead shot on. 
     "You look prepared Captain, but where's your gun?"
     "Got to pick it back up from Horace before we leave.  Still have my bullets?"
     Salric opened one of the pockets on his belt and pulled out four golden bullets.
     Captain frowned.  "Only four left?  If I knew that, I wouldn't have fired one yesterday," he said with his palm opened up.
     Salric dropped the last four into Captain's open hand.  "I still have a hard time believing you beat me at Rummy."
     "And I still can't believe you put them up for your bet when I raised you a few coins."
     "We all make mistakes, let's move on." 
     Captain looked around, searching for anyone else.  "The team?"
     "Everyone but Hembar will meet up with us."
     Captain was not shocked by this news.  Hembar's most useful feature was haggling and gathering info.  Besides, he was not in the best of shape to be coming on a trip like this.
      But everyone else was joining?  That was surprising to him.
      Captain knew that Salric would be coming, his fierce loyalty from being saved from the Walker's Pit and past friendship made sure of that.  He would follow Captain into the worst situations and never complain about a thing.  To Hell and back.   
      But the others didn't have such strong convictions...
      "Let's head over to Horace's real quickly and meet up with them."  Salric agreed and followed behind as Captain strode though the crowd and towards the shop.
   
      As they came into view of Gun Metal Heavy, Captain could see that the usually light that came from the shop fires was significantly dimmed down.  That was enough to speed Captain's walk towards the front of the store, where it was evident that there had been some sort of fight.  The wooden table near the front was broken in half, with tools sprawled all over the floor and walls, with dents, cuts, and holes everywhere.
      "Horace!"  Captain yelled out in worry.
      "Yo, Cap", came the usual heavy voice from the back of the shop, much to Captain's relief.  There was the sound of a shuffle, and Captain saw Horace slowly limp his way to the front with a clothed item.  Horace had looked better, his face now swollen with a broken nose, his piercings missing from his bloodied face.  It had looked like he was hit with a hammer to the face.
     "Jesus, Horace.  What the hell happened?"
     "Oh, just the hazards of the job, as usual."  Salric picked up a fallen chair nearby and presented it to Horace, who gladly accepted with a groan of pain as he sat down.  "But long story short, I think we are even."
      Captain, even though he has had his fair share of trouble from Horace, had actually taken a liking to large man and had even considered him a friend of some sort.  To see him beaten up like this irked him greatly.  "Give me the long story.  Who did this?"
       Horace sighed but then he gave that grin that people get when something really unbelievable happened and couldn't wait to tell what it was.  "A few days ago, some hulking metal guy that was ticking came by and gave me a bottle of black liquid, a lot of gold coins, and a letter."

     Captain gave a look to Salric, who gave one back, and then asked, "What was on the letter?"

     "Lots of fancy words, but basically it was payment to make the strongest chains I possibly could and cover them in this black liquid stuff.  Now I usually would like to know what stuff I'm given so that it would blow up in my face... literally.  Had one item that..."

     Same old Horace, he'll be fine, thought Captain, before he actually said, "Horace."

     "Sorry, off track.  Anyway, I took a close look at the bottle and the contents.  It looks just like regular ink until I tried to open it.  Then it started to move like it was bubbling.” 

     “Move?”

     “Yeah, it was fucking awesome.  Tried to grab me a couple of times, but after a few minutes it went limp.  I put it though a few tests first, like fire and some scrap metal.  It adhered to the metal like stink to a skunk.  And the fire… well it was completely unaffected.  In fact, I was tempted a few times to try and touch the flame to see if it was still hot.  Gave me an idea on how to fix a certain problem... Anyway, I made the chain links specific to the instructions and painted them completely with the stuff. Even with a second coating, I still had some left over."  He gave another grin before quickly groaning a laugh. "Well, that ticking guy came back with two more like him, which is scary in itself, and they display this wooden box."

     "Box?"
     "Yeah, box.  Not exactly a crate but bigger than a cube."  He gestured a square about the size of his chest.  Captain guessed it was probably around two by two feet.  "Seemed like just a regular wooden box at first.  But they place it on the table there," he pointed to the broken table, "and it started to move as well.  And at first I thought, 'Hey, there's something alive in that thing!'.  But one of the soldiers, this slimy green looking one, pulled a fucking spear and stabbed the box.  The large ticking one punched the green one and pulled the spear out, leaving this hole in it.  It stopped moving after that...
     "The ticking guy never spoke to me, but he had these papers that he wrote on.  And the first thing he wrote was 'Put the chains on it'.  Now, I have seen some weird stuff brought to me before, but not like this.  I brought the chains over and started to attach them to the box, mostly with bolts and screws.
     "As I was putting on the last chain links, that's when shit went wrong."
     Horace's face became cold and he gave a quick shiver.
     "When the last bolt was placed in, I could hear someone whimpering.  I looked around, but the soldiers and the ticking guy were silent, waiting for me to finish.  I took a look at the box and then looked through the hole and didn't see anything.  All that was inside was darkness, as black as the liquid they gave me for the chains.  I was about to shrug it off when I saw it.
     "It was an eye.  A bright white eye staring back at me.  And I felt paralyzed.
     "And I felt arms grab me and started pulling me towards the box.  And I heard a voice, the same one that was whimpering.
     "It told me to run.
     "And then the ticking guy pulled me away and sucker punched me in the face.  I woke up a few hours ago to all this." 

     Captain had a questioned expression, but didn't know what to ask.  So he went with the safe reply, "At least you're ok."

     “Well I can’t be too mad, I did find a silver lining in the shit storm of a mess.  Like that black gunk.”

     “What about it?”

     “Had some left over to fix another problem.”  Horace smiled with a bloody grin and unwrapped the clothed item he had to reveal a familiar shaped gun.

     It looked the same except for the color, which was now a dull metal black.

     Captain took it in his hand and gave a surprised look to Horace, "You didn't."
     Horace almost jumped out of his seat, "I so fucking did!  How about that for fire resistant!  I probably still wouldn't fire multiple shots though, but it's definitely more durable.  And now it even looks as awesome as..."  Horace looked around, and then had a sudden realization.  He limped across the room and started to look around the floor. 

     “Aw, damn it.”  Horace said as he kept looking around his messed up shop.  “They took my welding mask too.”    

     Evita walked calmly through the crowded streets of Main Street to reach her usual alley, gaining the much attention of men as she gave a wink in their direction. 

     She heard some woman scoff and whisper, “Whore.”

     Without missing a beat, she quickly turned to the woman and pinned her to the wall as she started to kiss her in front of the crowd.  She stopped right before the prissy woman was about to orgasm and smiled in a smug way.

     “Better a whore than a toy,” and she walked away with more people paying attention.
     Evita was more than confident about her abilities.  As long as she had her stare and, according to Captain, her smoking hot figure, she could take on anyone.  She as had her shape shifting, but that only worked as an illusion and didn't have any kind of power behind it.
     At first, when she turned into a Lusted, she felt so bad for Captain, who took really good care of her during the painful process.  Her drive and desire was so high that even after a whole night of being together, it wasn't enough.  She wished he was though... But with time and multiple incidences, she had gotten used to it.  
     As long as she has Captain to come to at the end.
     She walked into a quiet alley, away from the busy crowds of Main Street.  She was calm until she heard someone coming towards her.  At first she thought it was an onlooker who wanted to be an employer, so she looked around but saw no one.  However, the sound kept getting louder and louder.
     She turned and started to hurry to her usual spot, where she was at least protected by the other Lusted.  But the noise kept getting louder.  Like a person was walking closer to her in a set manner.
     She kept looking around, to give someone a stare or a yell.  Who was pursuing her?
     Then she realized it wasn't someone walking towards her. 
     It was ticking.  

     Captain and Salric made sure Horace was alright and started to head to the meeting place with the new gun now in Captain's holster.  And as they walked up, they noticed that Brant, Doc Jay, and Tusk were already there. 
     Brant was a quiet man, with straw blond hair and an thin athletic build.  He carried a large backpack that was almost larger than he was with ease.  He was whistling calmly as they strode forward and greeted him with a simple nod, who gave one in return.
     Brant, for lack of a better word, was the pack mule.  Ammo, secondary weapons, traps, and even food and water, he carried.  At first, it seemed as a joke, the group just kept loading him with stuff to make him say something in protest.  But he never did, and what started as a joke became a pure recognition of strength and skill.     

     Tusk Smith was large muscled Warrior that almost turned into a monster, with a thick build and large extended arms.  Captain met him in the Coliseum bashing over twenty people with a simple hand hammer and decided to take him for a job.  Now he was the muscle of the group, the first to go into a fight and the last to leave it.  He still carried his trusted hand hammer though, for both memory of where he came from and for emergency.  

     Doc Jay's real name was Jacob Simmons.  He was also from the Coliseum, but he used to be the healer for the contestants of the matches.  He was an older gentleman, with a dirty white coat that hid his automatic hand gun that seemed older than he was.  He was a crack shot, but still not as sharp as his insults.
     "Hello, gentlemen."  Captain said to all.

     Before anyone could say anything else though, an armored person started to rush over to them.  Like Abaddon, it was heavily armored, but instead of the bright metal colors, its armor was a bright blood red.  It also had lights and tubes attached to its shoulders, leading down to its hands.  The face mask though...  

     It reminded Captain of a cow or bull of some sort, with rounded breathing tubes for a nose and mouth.  Except for the left eye, which was scratched heavily, but no eyes could be seen inside. 
     However, instead of ticking like Abaddon, it smelt of heat and gasoline. 
     And anger.  Captain could feel anger come from this thing.
     Behind it were two black and white soldiers caring a board that had a black box on top of it.  It was chained down, with a hole showing on it's side.
 

 

 

End of Part 4 ~

Phew, finally.  Been busy at both work and looking for a new place to live, as well as packing to get ready and move.  Want to do more stuff, but life just keeps coming...

Till next time.