The Time

Chapter twenty four

In the time I had been walking and talking, Smiler had respawned and unfurled from its frozen spindly twisted position and, according to Queenie, was now skitting towards me at an unbelievable speed.
"Okay," Queenie began. "Duck as low as you can and step forward. Lower. Lower. Low- Okay good. Now take your foot off the pad. Slower! Okay, and... GO!"
I threw myself forward, dropping Velvet and came up in a crouch.
"Who's the dude?" She shouted. "Because if he's not important, leave him. Drop him and run. Now."
"I can't!" I moaned, dragging him back over my shoulder. "I need to take him to Quin."
"Fine. Then run! Run like fucking hell hounds are on your tail. RUN!"
And I did, Queenie occasionally shouting "Left!" Or "Right!" Or "Jump!" Or "Duck!"
With Velvet's extra weight however, there was to way I could outrun that creature and it's snarling twisting smiling mouth of jagged gravestone teeth. When Queenie realised this, she sprung through the trees, firing arrows from the bow she'd been carrying over her shoulder. I didn't have time to see if any hit their target; I just kept going, following her instructions.
Running... Running... Running...

I screamed.

Queen had been distracted. It was a simple mistake. But that didn't stop the fact that a jagged piece of glass had pushed it's way into my foot. And from how hard I was running, I knew it was in deep.
Crashing to the floor, I rolled in time to see the creature dive on me. It pulled my hair, yanking hard to bring my soft neck to its broken dinner plate teeth.
Before they could sink in however, another one of Queen's arrows hit home and this time, Smiler was no longer caring about me, but it's injuries. This meant I managed to push it off and, grabbing Velvet by the sleave and dragging him, hopping to the gates I could see just starting to coming into my suddenly blurring vision.
"Wesson!" I screamed through pain and desperation. "WESSON!"

My vision danced hot white and gold.

I heard Queen shout- No, shriek my name.

I couldn't pull the glass from my foot or I would faint or bleed out and die.

I stumbled and fell on it suddenly.

I scream again, crying and more pale than normal now.

I dragged myself to my feet, still desperately clinging onto Velvet.

I heard Smiler's rugged breath behind me.

I heard Queen fire more arrows.

I heard myself shout Wesson's name again.

I saw him.

I heard the creature's breathing.

I felt the creature's breathing.

I dropped Velvet.

I saw Wesson was screaming my name.

I felt undeniably sharp white hot needles of pain in the once soft, now bleeding skin of my neck.

Everything went black.

I hit the ground.

And then:
"For a badass, she's not very good." I heard the drawling voice of Virtue Jones over me when I awoke.
I kept my eyes shut as I felt and heard myself being carried carefully through cold stone rooms.
"Not very good?" Wesson practically gasped, seeming to be the one carrying me. "Are you kidding? You should have seen it! She wouldn't give up, wouldn't go down. Half dead. Blood everywhere. Smiler chasing her-"
"Smiler?" Milo interrupted, walking before us somewhere, stopping abruptly. "He's the one who did this? Did she kill him? Did anyone manage to kill him?"
"No, no one managed to kill it, but-"
"No." Quin stopped Wesson again. "No buts. It's got her taste now, her scent. It's not going to stop."
"The gates are shut though. And you know it won't come through. Ever since it was shut out of the park, it hasn't come back in. And anyway, Queenie was dealing with it."
"Fellas," Virtue smiled, hiding his nervousness well. "New resident here. What's 'Smiler'?"
"Smiler? Right now, what he is doesn't matter. All you need to know Jones, is that if you don't move, we're all dead. Find Destiny. Barricade every window. Lock every door. Otherwise? We've lost this war before its began..."
"Alright Arny, whatever you say." He scoffed.
"Queenie was dealing with it." Wesson repeated, finally listened to.
"All the weapons she has are homemade and considering that even Godkillers can't even kill this thing, she has no hope." Milo practically snapped.
"Will she be alright?" I mumbled through my groggines, finally deciding to let the others know of my consciousness.
Quin was leading the way to the dining room. Like I had done before, he had Velvet slung fireman style over his shoulder. His hands were tied and he was gagged. It was a shame I hadn't thought to do that earlier.
"Ah, you're awake." Milo noted grimly. "Yeah, she'll be fine; it's not her he's after."
"You keep calling it he." I noted.
"That's because it is a he. You know the story right?"
We were in the blue/gold dining room now, Jones' painting watching us suspiciously. I was laid carefully on the table beneath it by Wesson and enjoyed a great view of the intricate artecks design of the ceiling and chandeliers.
"Yeah, it was a man who went crazy. But it's not a man anymore. It kind of mutated. Like a glitch in our fucked up video game world."
"You're not wrong, but he didnt mutate; I experimented on him. I tried to see if I could replicate Destiny's immortality on a willing participant. And I managed to do it, but it drove him mad. I never needed a reason to try and stop him until now though as he ran out of the park, stayed in the boundaries and only attacked people who didn't use the rail. He was our own personal guard dog."
"You don't feel bad?" I scowled, sitting up, resting on my hands.
"I said willing participant. If it wasn't for my experiments, your foot and neck would be causing you pain."
"It would have been easier to kill me." I practically growled.
I knew Quin was nuts but I preferred the idea of Smiler before I knew it was him - my own friend - who made it what it was. I couldn't blame him though; everything was about survival in this world. And he did say willing...
"I could never kill you." He frowned, pursing his lips.
"I know..." I breathed in defeat.

When finally Des came in, Wesson was gone.
My leg was hanging over the edge of the table in an attempt to keep weight off it. I felt useless so decided to load as many guns and prepare as many weapons as I could. They may not be able to kill Smiler, but they could at least slow him down.
"What happened to you? Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Des rushed, hurrying over to me.
Cute.
"I'm fine." I smiled as reassuringly as I could. "Just got a fresh target on my back. You alright?"
He nodded.
"Actually, he's half left." Virtue smirked, ambling slowly, carefully, cautiously into the room behind my friend. "Milo told me to let you know he's working on a way to stop Smiler. I've also been filled in on the 411 of its past."
"Learning the youth lingo I see?" Velvet remarked from the corner. "Guess after you lost your kid friend, you had to make up for it by becoming one yourself."
The air of the room felt like it dropped 10 degrees as a thick feeling of tense ice rushed through.
"Not going to talk?" Velvet gasped. "I always thought you were Mr. Punchline? Shame. Must have beat it out of you..."
He was still tied up but had somehow managed to work the gag from his mouth.
At this point, everyone was stood stock still, almost rigid with questions of what anyone in that room was going to do.
Virtue was the one to make the first move. He walked over to Velvet, who refused to drop the grin, the seriousness on his face enough to make anyone waver. Then he stopped inches from that face, leant forward and hissed something into Velvet's ear. I couldn't hear it and by the looks of it, Destiny didn't either. But whatever it was, it made Velvet scream and scream and scream...

With a little help from Jones, we left the room to join Milo in the lab. This room was, like the room downstairs, midnight blue with a mismatch collection of old tables covered with glass bottles and containers of mysterious liquid. It looked more like a meth lab than some hight tech facility.
"You can walk on your foot now." Milo told me without looking up.
"Cool. You had any luck?" I asked, letting go of Virtue and Destiny and testing out his statement.
He then spewed off into talk of some kind of science I couldn't understand but the gist was that he was going to counteract the virus he had injected into Smiler to make him change in the first place.
"How long should that take?" Destiny questioned.
Before Quin could answer however, there came a sound from downstairs. I pulled the gun from the back of my trousers and ran to it. But then I found the source of the sound. It was Velvet screaming and shrieking and crying and fighting against the ropes which tied him to the wall as he was eaten alive by Smiler.