The Dead Scout's Handbook of Afterlife Survival

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Showdown at Greybull

The Hotel Greybull shivered under the cloud of swarming insects and within that darkness, not even benefited by the pale moonlight, Charlie peeked above the front desk. Oak framed pictures of rustic cars and landscapes chattered on their wires. Occasionally, the windows would clink with bombarding flies--though cracking glass remained absent from the cacophony.

He crushed the mahogany desk between his fingers. Something would break; it could be a window, a door, or the entire wall, because War's strength didn't lend respect to physical boundaries. And regrettably, Charlie's frenzied peeping hadn't helped him when he made eye contact with the armored giant, lumbering a block south of the hotel. Thus, the horsemen knew that the frost user, the telekinetic, and the strongman all bunkered within.

So Charlie sat paralyzed as he waited for something to burst inside. He would be ready, he told himself over and over; he was born and reborn to fight these monsters. All his life, he took abuse for being fat, for being awkward, for being the loser. He was the perfect warrior, shaped by tragedies first trivial and then final, waiting for his fight. Yet despite his words of encouragement, Charlie wondered. It wasn't the fear of dying that bothered Charlie so much. It was the memory of him, a man who could topple a building in a single punch, shaking in fear as a villian volleyed torrents of flames at his best friend Cayden. Charlie had grown up on anime and cartoons, on action stars and fantasy novels, Charlie had grown up on heroes.

Somehow, Charlie knew that his childhood had been dominated by men and women who overcame every adversity to save the day or maybe the world--heroes who arrived just in time, with cape billowing in the wind. In the memory of his own inevitable failure to help Cayden, it only made sense that Charlie could have been the only person to convince himself to believe in such a hero.

He would have to settle for pretending to be brave today.

After several minutes, not even the sound of armor clanked in the distance. Charlie glanced over the windowsill and almost to the end of his line of sight, War shoning in the firelight. He was motionless. Charlie leaned forward only to trip back, startled by a fly crashing into the glass. Upon clambering back to his feet, his eyes pierced the darkness to locate Pestilence, a dozen yards in front of the suit of armor.

Charlie cocked his head. What were they doing? Why would they send their most vulnerable and vital warrior ambling along the open street. Furthermore, how could they fail to utilize the best fighter for penetrating the stronghold?

Then it hit him: the horsemen must understand that Cayden painted a target on Pestilence. So there Pestilence was, slowly walking down the street--a bright white lure, and War--the barbed hook.

Given the chitinous mist waiting outside, Charlie thought better of charging War. He glanced North to confirm Famine's position. Through all this, it remained motionless, surveying the battlefield. Charlie looked south and noticed Cayden's hair popping above the windowsill of the far ranch house. Cayden was crouching. No, Cayden was readying to pounce into a fight--a fight he wasn't the least bit prepared for.

Adrenaline rushed through Charlie's veins as the weight of all his fear dropped away. This wouldn't be like with Gregory. Cayden was his best friend. He wouldn't watch him suffer this time.

A frantic scan of the lobby yielded picture frames, a bell, all the wood and bricks in the world, and nothing to throw The Four off Cayden's location. There were candles but Charlie couldn't see any way to use these against War.

Then, from the front desk's edge, one candle's flicker caressed the corner of the room, where there rested a box of twenty-four bottles full of gasoline.

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Rebecca kept shouting as the deafening buzz of the swirling arthropods sawed through every word. She gave up and collapsed in her chair, recognizing that she was an indispensable force only when she could see her target. Unfortunately, the shifting barrier of clawing limbs and paper-thin wings suffocated the moonlight. Meanwhile, Sarah was using everything to force the insects 5 feet away from the hotel. Many outcomes considered, a stalemate until Cayden did his job wasn't among them.