Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="arwink" data-source="post: 1796000" data-attributes="member: 2292">Exit 23, Part FourNick was trying to raise help on the state troopers radio, his call getting lost in bursts of static and chaos. The SIG-Sauer was still in his hand, the troopers glock tucked into his waist band.  It wasn’t, Zac thought, a terribly good sign.  “No good,” Nick said eventually.  “I’ve got the message through.  I think.  If they’ve heard it, they’ll be here soon.  ‘Officer down’ is the only phrase that gets a state trooper moving faster than ‘free donuts’.”“Lot of snow out there,” Ammie said.  “Really think they’ll be able to make it?”Nick shrugged.  He turned his attention back to the fallen business man.  His wounds were patched as best they could manage, the breathing a little more stable, but it still wasn’t good.  It’d taken all the scraps of first aid the two of them could remember to even get him to that point, and medical facilities in the rest stop were likely to be nonexistent.“Grab the door,” Nick ordered.  “We’ll take him back to the donut shop.  Keep him as warm as we can.”Ammie and Zac both blinked a few times, not entirely sure what he was getting at.  Then they moved the fallen door into position, laying it out and moving the wounded so it could be used as a makeshift stretcher.  They took a corner and lifted, slowly shuffling past the state trooper and through the doorway.Then Nick stopped, halting the progress.“Put it down,” he whispered.  “Noise in the arcade.”Ammie and Zac exchanged glances.  Neither of them had heard anything, but Nick was the guy with the guns now…They laid the door down, readied the flashlights and followed him into the darkened corridor.  The looming shape of dark arcade machines filled both walls, ominously quiet without the usual barrage of electronic bleeps and whistles.  Nick circle wide, gun and flashlight trained on the spaces along the far wall.Zac watched, his own flashlight following Nick as much as the far wall.  Whatever killed the cop in the bathroom wasn't likely to be hiding out in the arcade, and Nick seemed awfully comfortable with the gun. It was held at the ready, being careful not to block off his line of fire as he moved and switched the position of his light.Then Nick stopped.“Christ,” he said.  The gun disappeared back into its holster.  “It’s just a kid.”Ammie approached cautiously, watching as Nick tried to calm the kid.  Huddled into the space between two machines was a teenager, still dressed in the uniform of the burger joint from the far side of the rest stop.  He was shaking, skin covered in frost, muttering to himself.“You okay?” Nick asked.  “Hey, kid, you okay?”He reached out with one hand, shaking the youth’s shoulder.  Eyes snapped open, looking at them.“SHUT UP MAN, THAT *&#%$ THING MIGHT HEAR YOU!”The kid started to cry.Zac was there in an instant, his voice adopting a soothing tone as he started speaking.  “What thing?  What did you see?” “It…I…there was this thing…it was like a giant cloud of snow…then it was like a wolf…Man, it killed that guy.  Ripped him apart.  When the cop went in she shot it.  Shot it three times, and all it did was rip her apart.  I watched it kill them, watched it…watched it…”The kid stopped, blinking into the glare of the flashlights.“It saw me.  It looked right at me, IT KNOWS WHO I AM.  IT’S coming to FRICKEN GET ME.  I gotta get out of here…”He struggles to his feet, panic evident in his eyes.  He gets three steps towards the doorway when Ammie neatly grabs his arm in an iron grip, holding him fast.  “You’re not going anywhere,” Nick says.  He keeps his tone as authoritative as he dares, in this state the kid is far from stable.  “What’s your name, kid?”“Danny.”“Show me your arms Danny.”“*&#%$ you man, I’m not high.  I saw a *&#%$ing wolfman rip that guy apart.”Nick ignored him, ripped Danny’s sleeves as high as they could go.  He was clean, and his eyes didn’t show signs of anything other than shock and fear.Which meant he was either traumatized, or he really saw what he thought he did.Nick wasn’t sure whether to start singing or to start gibbering in terror.“Come on, Danny, we’re going back to the others.  It’s safer if we stay together.”The mood in the donut shop was tense.  Adding a panicked kid and a barely conscious business man did little to calm the situation.  Nick took charge of the situation immediately, holstering his gun and pulling a wallet free from his jacket.“Okay folks, we’ve got a situation,” he said.  “My name is Officer Nick De Lattre, ATF.  Everyone just keep calm and we should get through this just fine.”People crowded around the body, checking it over.“What happened to him, man?” The Indian kid asked. Nick shrugged.“At this time, we’re not entirely sure.  We think it may have been self inflicted.”</blockquote>

Verification