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Entry tags:	snip, twwd

T.S Eliot+monster story = OTP
Yes. Seriously.

The Night the World Went Dark

Chapter Three: In Rat's Alley

"'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
'Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'"
- T.S Eliot, The Waste Land, II. A Game of Chess

The woman seemed so suddenly small in the fading, steel-dust light of the alleyway that Ivan did not know what to say. She curled up, as if her spine was crumbling and turning in upon itself, until she was crouched on the ground and clutching at her knees with scraped-up, rust-flecked hands. All tight shoulders and white-knuckled fists, she looked so hopelessly lost that Ivan bent over, one hand on his shotgun and one on his knee, and frowned. Still, he did not know what to say.

"I want to go home," she said again, sighing it so that the words whistled between her teeth and out through her nose.

"Where is that?" he asked.

"What?" She looked up at him, blank for a moment before she gathered herself up again and pointed towards the mouth of the alley they had dropped down in. "Oh, it's over that way, maybe ten minutes' walk. That is, on a regular day when it's a bit crowded. I suppose I could make it in half the time, tonight."

Ivan bit the inside of his lip and thought. Beyond the wall, he could hear the nameless thing rampaging inside the station, far away and for the moment harmless - but he had seen it burst through the doors, seen the jagged tears it had made in the floor, and didn't particularly relish the idea of sticking around here to see what would happen. He looked down on the woman, who was slowly uncurling and straightening her back. On the one hand, she was slowing him down, but on the other, she lived in this town, and knew it better than he did.

And she's good as a pack-mule, if nothing else.

"Where are you going?" she asked, derailing his train of thought.

"Away," he said and shrugged. At this point, he didn't really care - as long as he got out of town and away from that thing.

"Oh." She frowned, but then cracked a smile. "Good luck."

Ivan raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything, because he had the uneasy feeling that he was going to need it. He left her there on the ground, limbs loose on the ground and scrubbing dirt from her wounds, and paced down the alley. In the gathering dark, it looked... dull. Exposed bricks, old posters announcing long-ago concerts flaking off the walls, trash cans that smelled of rot and mildew and last night's leftovers - unpleasant, but dull. Yet Ivan couldn't quite shake the feeling of something cold crawling up his spine. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something dark beside the trash cans, slumped against the wall, and turned his head for a better look.

It had been an old man - the kind you weren't sure was still alive until you checked their pulse - dressed in a well-worn, patched suit with grease-stains on the elbows and creases around the collar. There was a gaping hole where his throat used to be. Dark blood crusted the front of his shirt, and Ivan breathed in through his nose. Then, he turned on his heels and marched back to the woman.

"Back again so soon? I thought you were leaving." The smile she gave him was shaky at best, and Ivan didn't return it. "Or maybe you need something?"

"I do not know the way," he confessed.

"You don't? Well, of course you don't. You're not from around here, are you?" She stood up slowly and brushed the dirt from her trousers as she spoke, and Ivan didn't bother to answer; these weren't the kind of questions that needed answers. "To tell you the truth, neither am I, but I know my way about town. I'll help you out - but let's get away from here first, alright? This place gives me the creeps."

He let her babble on and waited until she shouldered the bag with the radio again, then headed off down the alley. This time, he hurried past the corpse without a second glance, and to his great relief, the woman passed by without noticing it as well. That... thing made the most of its time - seven corpses so far, and it's barely been two hours. He wrapped his fingers more securely around his weapon, and sped up.

Let's hope we don't get as far as eight.



This is slightly ruined by the fact that I can't reproduce the awesome fonts that the story-title and chapter-title is written in - it's gritty and type-writerly and very survival-horror-ish.