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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 5020400" data-attributes="member: 3285">No Pain, No Gain: Part 3 – It's Fun to Stay at the Y.M.C.A.The YMCA was still a very handsome design. Despite its condition, the building was stately and bombastic, invoking a more proud and positive time. There was a chain fence surrounding the plot, and the building itself was heavily boarded. Towards the back, accessible through a small gate in the fence, was a small square building. Lights were visible inside. Heavy weed growth ran from the building right up to the fence.Hammer peeked in.  The cottage had a bedsit-type layout with a kitchen/living room and a separate bathroom/bedroom. It was very clean and tidy, in stark contrast to the surrounding area. "Someone's here, but not in the cottage," he whispered. "So stay alert."They all drew their pistols as they made their way to the larger building.  Large growths of weeds and fungus were everywhere inside. There were normal varieties, but were prodigiously healthy."First, a little preparation for whatever didn't show up in that photograph," said Archive.  He scrawled the Elder Sign on their pistols with his chalk. "Every YMCA has to have a pool," said Hammer. He led the way into the main room. It was a wreck. Fallen masonry made footing precarious, the walls were filthy and cracked, and broken skylights let the elements in. The whole place reeked of feces and the hot coppery scent of blood. The main pool was a filthy brownish green, with a thick oily sheen upon the surface. In one corner of the pool sat a bloated, humanoid figure about the size of a car. Atop a pale flabby body was a flat round face with tiny black pinprick eyes and a wide mouth full of needle-like teeth. A brown tentacle-like tongue occasionally flicked from between the teeth, leaving a glistening trail. If the creature had lower limbs, they could not be seen past its vast, distended belly. "What.  The Hell.  Is That," said Hammer calmly."Just another tentacled beast stewing in a pool of blood and feces," said Jim-Bean wryly.Bleats and squeaks echoed around them.  Crawling their way out of doorways from the perimeter of the pool room crawled awful, barely humanoid figures. The creatures had round hairless heads, devoid of features aside from a short black beak. The body was unnaturally round, with an asymmetrical bone structure evident beneath the bluish-white skin and patchy grey fur. They had four limbs, irregularly spaced along the torso; two were goat-like legs with lumpy hooves, while one was a scaly tentacle, and the final, most horrifying of all, was an emaciated human arm. They sealed off all routes of escape, fire axes in their clutches.The little beasts lurched at them, squealing and gibbering.  Hammer took aim and blew the head off one, adding red and gray spatter to the brown and green filth that covered everything.The monstrosity in the pool bellowed as Jim-Bean mowed down another one. MY CHILDREN! Shrieked a voice in Hammer's mind.  YOU WILL TAKE THEIR PLACE AND SERVE ME! COME!Hammer felt a mental tug, as if a fishing line had lodged itself in his medulla. "Stay close!" shouted Archive, chanting.  The pressure was suddenly lifted from their minds.More of the goat-squid things exploded.  Heedless of their casualties, they surged forward, attempting to drag them into the pool."Mother!" someone cried in anguish behind them.  "I'm coming!"A gaunt man in overalls charged forward, claw hammer in hand. Jim-Bean reached out an open palm and caught the man in mid-charge with his telekinesis.  "You must be the caretaker.""Don't hurt Mother!" he shrieked.Jim-Bean made an overhand throwing motion towards the pool. "Why don't you give mommy a hug?"The caretaker flew headlong into the murky depths, disappearing into the muck above the flailing tentacles with barely a splash."What the…" asked Hammer.  "He went right through her?"Jim-Bean eyed Hammer curiously, squeezing off another shot at the goat-squids.  "She's cloaking herself.  I can fix that."  He concentrated…And Hammer saw the thing for what it really was. The pool erupted in a storm of reaching, grasping tentacles.  Hammer backpedalled, firing as he went. Jim-Bean rolled to the side. But the water had sloshed everywhere.  Archive slipped and fell.Hammer and Jim-Bean grabbed Archive by his feet just as one tentacle wrapped around his arm. A tug of war ensued.  "Pull me back!" Archive yelped in pain as the gray slime covered his forearm. Jim-Bean let go of Archive just in time to duck the swipe of a hatchet.  The caretaker had slipped back out of the pool and run around to the other side.Jim-Bean telekinetically captured the Caretaker a second time, slamming him backwards into one wall. He fell to the ground, unconscious.Hammer was losing the fight. Jim-Bean turned back just in time to grab hold of Archive's pant leg.  They hurled backwards as Archive slipped free of the tentacled thing's grip."Are you okay?" asked Hammer.Archive took a few shuddering gasps, prone.  "My arm."  He sat up, holding the forearm raked by the tentacle.  "My arm…it's…" The skin where the tentacle had encircled him had turned the color of the water, a greenish brown. Archive lifted his fingers and sticky strands of his flesh tore off, emulsified by the slime.  Blood seeped from the fresh wounds."Ahhh!" screamed Archive.The tentacles withdrew into the pool, concealing the thing completely. Hammer stalked over to the caretaker.  Jim-Bean had already tied cuffs on his wrists. Hammer slapped him awake.  He pointed at Archive, who was cradling his arm in agony.  "What did that thing do to him?""Mother calls her children," he said, eyes rolling madly.  "He will be one of hers soon.""We've got to kill that thing fast," said Hammer.  "Jimmy?"Jim-Bean took a detonator out of his satchel.  "Momma gets the whole package."  He threw it into the pool and pressed the detonator.Water, blood, and feces exploded everywhere. The pool was emptied out, the thing writhing at the bottom. The tentacles connected to a primeval fish, twenty feet in length from its bulbous head to its crescent-shaped tail.  Three slit-shaped eyes protected by bony ridges were set on atop the other in the front of its head, which remained just beneath the surface as it attacked.  It had a pink belly, with four pulsating blue-black orifices that lined the bottom of its body and secreted gray slime. Hammer pumped bullets it into until it stopped screaming. Then he tossed several thermite charges into the far corners of the room.  They left the caretaker to his fate, who started screaming at the top of his lungs.  Then they left. "The time is coming!" bellowed the caretaker, clawing his way towards the liquefying corpse at the bottom of the empty pool.  "The Mother shall reclaim the Earth! Samson will be ground--"Then thermite explosions tore the words from his throat.</blockquote>

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