The Demon In A Suit

Fire And Change

Nicole and Danny helped a really badly injured Gabrielle onto the mattress she used to sleep with extreme care. There was blood dripping from the bottom of her leg and it looked like some of the wounds she got from the Whisper in the hunting store were starting to open up and swell.

-Take off her pants, we need to change her bandages and put on more alcohol.-

Said Danny, while pointing at the half-empty bottle of vodka close by the door.

Nicole ran to get the bottle and some rags to Danny after helping him with Gabrielle's pants and what she saw really concerned her. Her legs were swelling and bloody, too much damage and too little time to heal. They talked about how Gabrielle was doing too much, throwing herself into the streets of the Other Town only a few days before coming was not only insane but also a good way to have the people around her and herself killed.

-We should talk with her. Made her stay in the apartment for some days while she recovers, then have her go out with only one of us. That way we can show her how to be safe.-

Nicole told Danny not to worry about Gabrielle's well being.

-Yeah, you're right Nick. The girl is smart but she jumps into the fire like a moth. She'll kill herself given enough time. But it's strange.-

Danny told her with a lot of curiosity.

-What is strange?-

-Oh nothing... Well you know, I always wanted to ask you. It's gonna sound a little cold maybe, but at this point I just have to ask.-

-Go ahead. Ask me.-

Nicole told him while both of them cleaned Gabrielle's wounds.

-Well... How do I... Mmmh...-

-Just ask me looser.-

-Why do you care?-

There was a silence as they continued watching Gabrielle. It wasn't a normal silence but a really uncomfortable one.

-What do you mean why I care?-

-Why do you care for her specifically? First it was Ann and she was an asshole. I would think you'd stop trying to help people after that. But then I found a new girl in the apartment... Why do you care?-

Nicole was clearly not comfortable with this question, there was something in her eyes, it almost looked like a memory and for a moment there Danny saw it.

-Is it because of that girl you were with at the beginning?-

When Danny said that, she turned away and stood up, walking away visibly uncomfortable.

-Sorry but I don't wanna talk about that Danny.-

-Oh... uh... Sorry, I thought you got over it already.-

-No I haven't.-

Nicole told him angry.

But there was something else in her voice, there was clearly something she had stuck in her chest and was unable to share with Danny.

-Well, if you wanna talk about it, I know I don't look like the type, but I can listen to you, who knows? Maybe I even know a bit about this shit.-

-Maybe some other day Danny.-

They finished cleaning and patching Gabrielle up and lay her in bed to rest for the night (since there was only night in the Other Town.) And with that they slept for what seemed like hours. When they woke up, they got to work. Danny got some new sound traps for the apartment building "just in case" and Nicole got more water from the roof since it would be better to have it closed. Two days passed and Gabrielle only woke up a couple of times, not completely awake and more like in between dreams. She was sweating and had a fever, so Nicole used water and a cloth to try and cool her down a bit. It definitely helped, but every hour it was more obvious that they needed something stronger than alcohol and rugs. Danny used this time to go find more food since he was the only one who didn't get injured in the encounter with the three intruders. It took him a couple of days but he was able to get enough food to pass the week without problems. On one of his exploring trips he found people outside in the streets. This wasn't something strange for Danny, since people are easy to find if you go to the right parts of the Other Town. There's a natural distrust for anyone who has enough time in this place, since it isn't uncommon to be robbed or killed by another survivor, even Danny himself had seen it before happening to people in the street, since finding food isn't easy at all and bad luck can make you go back empty handed.

There was a woman trying to open the closed door to a*****e. She looked slim and desperate. Danny saw her from across the street, it was the sound what made him curious enough to go check it out.

-She's gonna get herself killed.-

He whispered to himself while ducking behind a rusty car. He was holding his nail gun, unsure if he should warn the women about the horrors that the Other Town housed and the many eyes and ears always waiting for a signal. It was a matter of time before one of those monsters heard the commotion. Then a big c***k was heard, Danny peaked and saw the women entering the store after finally braking the door.

He saw no whispers coming from any side of the street. It was a lucky day for that woman. Then he thought that maybe he was the lucky one. After all, it was just one woman alone who had just opened the door of a grocery store. It would be easy to get there with his gun, take her out with a silent shot and take all the loot for himself. Then he stopped thinking and felt the heavy weight of his moral corruption after remembering what Gabrielle said. Was he like Jerry and Uncle Earl? Was he becoming a cold-blood killer too? After all, that woman was just hungry and, most importantly, unharmed as far as he knew. There he remembered better times for him, working in his dad's welding shop with his brother, the happy memories with his dog and how much he loved the smell of mom's breakfast in the morning. He thought deeply about the young man he was then and how much he had changed.

He started noticing that these four months in Other Town were messing with him, changing him into something he didn't want to be, so he decided to just wait for the woman to get all she needed and go in after her. Once she's gone and then he could just take whatever's left by her. After all, he had already got some food stored in the apartment. Then he heard something inside the store, there was someone else inside with the woman. Danny looked shocked at first. "I didn't see anyone inside" he thought, "maybe there was a creature trapped inside".

He hesitated, thinking it could be dangerous to help the lady. He could morally improve in other ways without risking his own life for a stranger. But could he live with that? Knowing he left a person to die when he could actually save her, Danny knew that would be it, he would not go back from it. After a moment of squeezing his gun, he jumped out of cover to run into the store where the screams of the women were plenty.

When he got closer to the door he felt a chilling flow coming from the inside, a light headache and a feeling of despair, there was a creature of madness inside.There he saw a dark figure moving in the air with the shape of a person made out of dirty pieces of cloth and dead grass. Its movement was fluid and persistent, it contorted and changed its shape in order to entangle the woman as tightly as it could, blocking her mouth and nose. Danny saw that the interior of his shape was hollow but not quite alone. It is difficult to describe the feeling of horror and uneasiness for Danny when he looked at the emptiness of the shape floating in front of him and felt a gaze looking back at him, a cold and soulless anger praying for those unfortunate enough to feel his embrace.

The entity screeched and twitched in his direction with the woman fighting to get free from his grasp, but the entity pulled her towards Danny with no effort. He tried running through the aisles of the store with hope of losing it, but his gaze proved too heavy and a chase took place. The creature pulled the woman with it as it moved, slamming her with the walls and empty cabinets. She screamed and cried as her body was violently being dragged around chasing an agile young man through the store as he slid and jumped around, gaining as much time as he could until he used a moment of cover to push a cabinet and crashed half of the creature, leaving it trapped under it, barely missing the women.

He didn't lose any second to cut loose the body of the woman with his knife, tossing aside his improvised gun, but the woman was scared and hurt. She screamed and fought the young man with punches and claws as he tried not to cut her and hold her down. Once he finally sliced the grasp of the creature on the woman, Danny stepped away and screamed.

-Stay away! I'm burning this thing!

She saw Danny holding a crystal bottle filled with a clear liquid and a small cloth as he started making fire with a lighter in his other hand. She crawled as far away as she could and suddenly half the store was in flames. The light in the room now was plentiful and the creature clear as day as it burned in a high-pitched scream of pain. Danny was surprised about what just happened and it took some seconds for him to react to the fire, turn around to the woman and try to help her but when he tried he was met by the other end of his improvised gun and a really scared woman with her finger on the trigger.

-Please.. we have to get out.-

He pleaded as he lifted his hands around his head to show he was not a treat but the eyes of this woman were playing tricks on her. She had been in this hell for so long without light and now everything was blinding her, the details in Danny's face reminded her of all the bad people she encountered there, all the abuse she felt and the deformities and horrific creatures in the Other Town combined with the despicable things other people did to her. Being on the other side of the circle of violence felt good for her or so she thought as she smiled.

-f**k all of you, I'll kill you all you hear me?!-

Danny took a big breath in and he lowered his hands as he took the end of the gun calmly. She immediately pulled the trigger expecting a shot but was surprised when the trigger didn't go all the way in. Danny used this moment to kick this woman in the stomach and take back the gun in a swift movement. He then pointed the gun at the woman and a clicking sound was heard.

-You need to remove the lock first deep shit.-

He stood there for some seconds with the gun pointing at her while she tried to grasp the air. Then the woman looked up with despair in her eyes, waiting for her terrible end in the hands of this stranger.

-Are you stupid?! Get out!-

Danny screamed as he lowered the weapon and started running to the exit before the flames got there. She didn't believe it at first, but after a moment they were both outside watching the interior of the store grow pale orange with the flames. The woman was in bad shape but wasn't injured in a serious way. Danny saw the backpack she was carrying on her back was full.

-I'm glad you got something out of that s**t show. Any good deals?-

The women took the backpack off and tossed it at Danny's feet as she stepped back slowly.

-Please, I can get you more if you let me go.-

She said with fear while looking at his gun.

-Oh really? That would be cool.-

Danny looked inside the backpack with all the cans of food, oil and some garlic the women had but after some moments he closed the backpack and tossed it back to the woman.

-But I think you need it more than I do.-

-W-What do you mean? Then what do you want?-

The woman asked in fear of her life.

-Chill ma'am, don't think too much about it. Although I guess surviving this hell hole would be cool.-

He put the safe lock back on the gun and put the gun away slowly.

-What I'm trying to say is that I'm not gonna let this place change me. Neither am I gonna let its people do it.

-Honey... are you stupid?-

-I hope not, I'm just new at this optimistic shit.-

They both laugh a little as they keep talking until eventually the sound of creatures getting close forced them to move out of the streets. The woman shared with Danny that night. Her name was Berty and she was a single mom, she said. Got there after she bumped with an old friend in a butcher shop and after that her memory was a bit blurry. She didn't really remember how many days ago that happened, since she hadn't seen the sun come out in a while.

-Yeah, I haven't seen it in quite some time now, sometimes I remember how warm it felt....-

Said Danny while looking up at the cold and dark sky while glancing at the gray and gloomy moon.

After more small talk they finally talked about why Danny was there.

-I'm looking for medicine for a friend. She's sick.-

- Oh my, is she ok? What's wrong with her?-

-She's wounded and we think it got infected.-

-That's dangerous, especially if you let her untreated. What you need is some good antibiotics-

Danny looked confused at this statement, since clearly medicine wasn't something he knew about.

-It's a kind of medicine used to treat infections, viruses and some strong diseases. But oh my god, you're so lucky. I know where you can find some oregano.-

-What is that?-

-Oh it's a herb honey. It's usually used as seasoning but it has some antibiotic properties. I saw it in a garden inside this big house one time but you have to know at this point that the streets change after a while, so I can't really tell you where, but I can tell you the house where I saw it was really big and had two big gargoyles in the entrance gate.-

Danny was intrigued, to say the least. He knew the house Berty was talking about since he had seen it a couple of times before, but there was always movement on the inside, so he never entered it out of fear of monsters.

-Thank you ma'am. That'll help me a lot.-

-Don't worry, that's the least I can do. Oh, I almost forgot. Clean it, smash it until it becomes a paste and spread it on the already cleaned wound.-

They exchanged some smiles and after a while parted ways, wishing each other good luck. Danny did try to invite her to the apartment but Berty said she had a place of her own with people she was already taking care of. The young man got back to the apartment, trying to find the house with the gargoyles in his way but did not find it. He knew that two pairs of eyes would be better for this task, so he needed Nicole's help on this one. When he got back, Nicole was not there, she wasn't back from her scavenger hunt yet. He waited for Nicolle next to Gabrielle as she was starting to look better. Her temperature was almost gone but the wounds on her legs were just as sored as before. He knew that if they didn't do something the girl might loose her legs.

After some hours, Nicole entered the apartment running and slamming the door behind her. Danny took his nail gun and ran to her.

-Is something following you?-

Danny whispered to her.

-What?! Oh.. no.. no there's nothing, it's just... I thought I saw something."

Nicole was sweating and her pale skin made it difficult to believe her. Her eyes were all over the place looking in the corners of the room, scared and disoriented. Danny gave her some minutes to calm down. After all, he knew that sometimes the darkness of the streets could play mind games with those who stare at it for too long.

-Listen Nick, I think we got a lead on something.-

He told Nicolle as she started to calm down and sat on the dusty couch.

-There's some medicinal herbs that can help Gab's legs, we just need to find it.-

Danny explained all the details to Nicole, who wasn't totally sure about the veracity of the information.

-What was the name of the herb?-

-Oregano I think, you know it?-

-Yeah, it's good on pasta and some cuts of meat.-

-Cool, so you can help me find it.-

-Are you sure oregano is what she needs? I mean I thought she needed strong medicine, but oregano? That's more like a spice, you know?-

-We have nothing to lose.-

-How about our lives?!-

Nicolle screamed angrily.

-How about her live?!-

Then Nicolle pointed to Gabriella.

- Are you gonna propose a better idea then?.-

After a long and angry silence, they finally agreed on the matter, although she wasn't at all convinced, they were desperate enough to try anything at this point. They gathered some food and water after they leave a note just in case she wakes up and they're not back yet.

-Sorry, I guess I'm not good at being the optimistic one of the group-

Said Danny to a dumbfounded Nicolle.

-Uh... Ok.-

They both took their backpacks and got out without knowing that at that moment they were leaving the apartment for the last time, never to come back again.