...And Hell Followed With

Chapter Eleven:"Mud and Thunder."

As she limps into the vacant parking lot, she can see the red light that had emanated from the school has now stopped. But the school is lit up with all its lights on. As she gets to the four sets of heavy doors leading into the southside of the school, she finds an individual in white robes's dead body laying against the wall.

As she walks up to it she kneels down, seeing that this person looks reasonably intact, so she pulls the hood up. It's the teacher she saw running into that small hall earlier, to talk to a figure in a similar white robe. Yet the woman's face is pretty badly damaged, with her jaw bone having been ripped completely off, leaving her tongue dangling out of her head.

Her arm had been torn off from it's base, and a blood trail leading into the school. The blood showed that after all this had happened to her the woman had crawled with one arm out into her curtain position.

"Holy fu-" Maddi says, but then hears a monstrous shriek off in the distance. She pulls out her gun, and quickly gets inside the school. She gets in and slowly makes her way into the main hall. As she does she sees dead bodies littered throughout the entrance way. They were mostly those strange white robed people. Also one or two people who are dressed normally. But all the bodies were school staff, at least on the bodies that she could fully identify anyway.

"You know, on any other day that might seem strange." She says out loud looking at the bodies. She begins to follow the bodies, as they lead down the main hall into the rest of the school. She makes it to the main corridor that has the principal's office. When she hears it.

"Hey." a voice whispers from out of nowhere. She looks around, and her eyes pass over a few of the white robbed bodies. One of which is holding tightly, in one hand, to a black book. She keeps scanning, but hears it again.

"Yeah, you." it whispers. She scans back and this time, the body is holding a white book now. She notices that the book has changed color. So she starts to walk up to it slowly.

"Pick me up." it spoke again, this time very clear. She bends down to pick up the book. She bends down slowly with her gun drawn, as she puts her fingers on the book's spine, the what looked to be dead, corpse holding the book chokes out a sound.

"The Book li-" but before it can finish, Maddi accidentally pulls the trigger, and blasts it's brain out leaving a big hole. Making Maddi jump backwards.

"Holy shit." she blurts out loud. She then listens to hear if anything could hear the shot. Yet only silence met her ears, which relieved her somewhat.

"Pick me up."

She hears the book whisper again. She hesitantly goes to pick it up once again, and picks it up, noticing that it has turned back to black.

"Hmmm?" the voice says, now loud enough that it was speaking at a normal volume.

"W-What are you?" The words seemed to hesitantly slip out.

"Ooooh straight to the chase, I see." The book says, with a little levity under its words. "Let me ask you a question first, and then maybe I'll answer your's in tow."

"Fine."

"What... Color am I?" it spoke.

"That depends. I look at you once and you are white, then I look again, and you swiftly turn you're black."

The book gives a hearty laugh that confuses Maddi and scares her a little but then she becomes a little angry.

"What the fuck, are you laughing about? Do you know what I have been through?! You don't know what I-I have lost..." She almost yells and begins to tear up a little. After a moment of silence, the book spoke again.

"Sorry, it seems I... underestimated your kind." Its delight is both audible and voluptuous in its words.

"I suppose all this... deplorable nonsense is your doing?" She says a tear began to roll down her cheek.

"In... one way or another."

"These monosalivic dick bags in white, is that the other?"

The book paused for a moment before speaking again, as if it were planning it's words very carefully.

"They wanted what all who seek gods want-"

"-Power for themselves." Maddi cuts the book off.

"Yes..." it gave out a loud laugh and then began to speak again, which was obviously full of malicious joy. "...all in this are easily trapped, twisted for any other's dark ends."

Then Maddi saw what the book was saying, then maybe it was the loss of blood or how intensely over the whole thing she was, she laughs, a broken horrible laugh that was not from humor but from pain.

"You-you let them destroy themselves."

The book laughs, another hearty laugh.

"It wasn't hard. I just let them open my book up..." it laughs hard "...and let them read it's pages. Oh, oh then they brought home a monster from another world to their own doorstep." and the book continues to laugh.

"You... you fucking bastard." Maddi quietly whimpers and she finally breaks. She falls to her knees and starts to laugh, her painful hurting laugh. For some reason, the fact that all this was random chance, that it was because some people were dumb enough to listen to a book that was blaintly lying to them, made her feel like it was true, everything was completely and utterly meaningless. She has now lost everything, she thought this is the way the universe works, it is a bleak random horror, where reason is fruitless.

"Now" it says, almost demandingly. "Open my pages and read my inside."

Maddi without hesitation opens up the book to find, all the pages are blank.

"So few can't be bought, bullied, or reasoned out of their missions. I could tell you anything to try to stop you... But the pages are blank... You'd rather light me aflame than bargain in any capacity.'' The book continues, Maddi now falls completely to the floor, continuing to laugh till it turns from laughter to sobs, as the memories of her dead friends begin to flood her mind.

Her life, her love, everything, taken by idiots, vying for power they could not have. She clutches the book in her arms.

"Oh Mar... Loc... Wes... it was for this, it was for nothing..." She says through uncontrollable crying, and curling into the fetal position. The book starts to disappear and before it completely disappears it says.

"This isn't over Maddison, follow the rest of the bodies."

The book fully disappears, and she lays there quietly sobbing, when suddenly she starts to laugh once again, becoming more and more menical as she does so.

Something within her finally snapped, she is now so full of rage, sadness, and wants revenge so badly that now, all she can do is laugh. She gets up still laughing, as tears still stream down her face. She pulls out both guns, and checks to make sure they are loaded. She puts them both away and she is trying, straining to stop laughing, she tries to regain some sort of composure, only succeeding in making her laugh even more painned.

Finally she grabs a piece of 2x4 that is part of the school debrid. She then begins, screaming in rage and sadness. Through cries and growls, she smashes every window, every piece of glass divider left standing in the hall.

When she hits a wall with the 2x4, breaking it into small pieces. Where she lets go of the 2x4. She puts her head in her hands, crying only a little as this righteous outburst, has led to a catharsis of her emotions. She takes a deep breath in, and wipes away the tears. She understands that she must continue on, that this must be finished one way or another.

"Wesley, my love... I'll be seeing you when it's done." She then looks down the hall towards the next building. She pulls out a gun. "Let's end this..."