The Franklin Incident (Philly-Punk) (3 page)

Poe drew down with his pistol and opened-fire before both parts of the constable's body had even hit the carpeted floor.  His gunfire revealed a massive darkened shape that bounded down the hall, retreating from them.  Poe stopped firing and barked at me, "Let's go, Adams!"

I stood in that suddenly-still hallway and felt my feet unable to move.  It wasn't fear, at this moment, but an inability to think of what to do next.  The hallway had been alive only moments before with a grotesque dance of outright slaughter, O'Conner having been cut down no differently than a steer on a cattle ranch.  Yet now nothing stirred in the darkness.  Nothing moved.  No sound.  It was as if nothing had happened before.  As if a man had not just died.

But one... actually, two... had.

The question was: what was I to do about it?

Poe took away the need to answer that question at that moment by grabbing my elbow and yanking me in the opposite direction.  "Adams!"

I know not the reason why I decided to do this but I grabbed the Fightin' Jack iron fist off the ground, severed appendage and all, and tucked it under my own arm. 

Then I ran down the hall with Poe, dashing for the stairwell that we'd used earlier.  It seemed miles away, though, and getting further even though we were running as fast as we could toward it.  The hallway reverberated with our footsteps and things horrible: a high-pitched keening like some wild animal and fingernails raking across plaster!  It seemed to be everywhere: in back of them, to the left, suddenly coming from the front.

We finally arrived at the stairwell, Poe reaching for the door.  But a flash of light drew my attention back down the hallway as ten... fourteen... twenty small round lights suddenly turned on.  They went from small, intense beams to a massive flash of bright white as if the full candlepower had been switched on.  Poe stood beside me, as transfixed as I was.

And a rumbling grew out of the stairwell, the very floor under us shaking.  The door suddenly flew open and shapes bounded out, enveloping us.

* * *

It was a collision of bodies.  I felt like a wave in the ocean had suddenly barreled me over.  However, it wasn't water but solid flesh rushing into more flesh.  Limbs intertwined, feet were tangled, and we all rolled painfully to the floor.  Grunts escaped mouths and curses flew like fireworks.  But no one fought and it was only when I had regained my torch and brought it around on the assaulting group, did I see that there were six people: three constables and three men in liveried clothes.  Servants.  Two of the constables and a valet had pistols, while the others carried clubs or strong pieces of wood.  The constables immediately peppered Poe, their senior officer, with questions, trying to find out about everything from the gunshots, the dead people they'd found, and where Constable O'Conner was.  Poe was succinct and – perhaps you might say – a little cold with his responses.  But the men needed Poe to tell them what was going on so that they could prepare for what might lay ahead.

Unfortunately, they never got that luxury.  Poe was drawing up the better parts of a plan when the lights that we had seen earlier came on again down the hall.  Instantly, that horrible keening sounded out.  Valiantly, the three men with pistols stepped forward and knelt, forming a firing line.  Constables were no more than British soldiers in a different costume.  The men with clubs, Poe, and myself held up the rear.  I took the moment to carefully take the severed arm out from the Fightin' Jack.  I set it as respectfully as I could on the ground.  Then I slip the fist over my own, trying not to be too conscientious of the liquid lining the inside.  I fastened the brace on my arm and reset the pistons on the side.  It was ready.

Poe, pistol drawn over the heads of his constables, scanned the hallway, the white lights pulsating at us not twenty feet away.  "Wait for my signal men!  Then open fire."

The pulsating stopped.  The lights went dark and the hallway returned to its pitch black existence.  No sound could be heard whatsoever.  Everything was still and black.

"Where'd it go, si—" one Constable began but Poe smacked him on the shoulder.

"Say nothing!"

I watched my friend carefully; glad to see the natural-born leader in him finally getting a chance to shine.  Most people found Poe to be unsocial and cold.  However, I always found the opposite.  In certain company, Poe could be a fine conversationalist, amicable, even gregarious.  He understood most men perhaps more than they cared to be understood.  Most men found that offputt—

Something about the door on the constables' left side seemed to suddenly change.  Not the door itself but... I couldn’t put my finger on it.  Then the light seen through the crack at the bottom went dark all of a sudden as if... someone was standing before the door!  "POE!"

The door seemed to bulge outward as if something was trying to climb through it like an open window.  With a nerve-gnashing rip, the wood began to literally tear as the door exploded off its hinges in pieces.  Shrapnel assaulted the line of constables like a cannon barrage.  One large piece slammed into the closest constable, hitting him at the juncture of his neck and head where the bones inside cracked like dry branches on a lit fire.  The man slammed into the other constables, barreling them over to the ground.  They turned to the door, guns drawn around as a dark shape leapt out of the maw of the doorframe.  Screams of horror filled the hallway and gunfire crackled, spent gunsmoke suddenly engulfing us all. 

I watched Poe step forward, firing off the remaining shots in his six-shooter.  His bullets, though, sparked off some metal chest plate as the smoke-shrouded shape dove at them.

Then it was among them.

One of the Constables was cut down by the killer's sword like a scythe through a wheat stalk.  The three men with melee weapons leapt into the fray, their clubs drawn back for the strike.  What were clubs against a sword?  Beyond that, what was an Iron Fist?  One of the men was drawn upward by a powerful arm and thrown towards Poe and myself.  I scrambled out of the path of the living cannon fodder but Poe wasn't so lucky.  He was slammed back though the open door and I heard his body tumble down the stairwell.

I fled the gruesome battle.  Not out of cowardice nor to go in search of reinforcements.  I fled the battle to find my friend.  I knew him hurt and possibly defenseless against, what was clearly, a skilled warrior.  You may think me craven, but I care not.  I know why I left that battle.

I hurried into the stairwell.  Poe lay at the bottom of the next landing, his head resting against the wall, blood flowing from a gash in his forehead.  Carefully, I gathered up my unconscious friend and slung him over my shoulder.  Sporadic gunshots, horrid screams, and that high-pitched keen echoed down through the stairwell.  I ignored them all.  Carefully – but hurriedly – I made my way down the stairs.  I found my way back to the office that we had first gone to, the office that held the dead woman.  I would treat Poe's wounds and hide him and myself.  We would wait out the killer until reinforcements came looking for us.  There we would be safe. 

For why would the killer return to scene of his first kill?

* * *

thump... thump...

The killer is in the room with us. 

The feet that shuffle across the floor do so uncoordinatedly, as if they are too big for the legs that use them.  Such power in each step makes the very floorboards under me shiver.

thump... thump...

I need to flee.  I need to draw the killer out of the room, if only for Poe's life.  Draw it somewhere else into the belly of this great building and... contain it, somehow without fighting it.  For why kill a beast, if only to become one?

Poe's pistol lies beside him.  I know that it's spent, however, he always carries an extra set of cartridges.  The bullets won't hurt the killer; that much I know.  However, it might anger him enough to keep after me and save others.  Yes, that is a lie I allow myself as I carefully shift my position and began searching my friend's pockets.  I find the paper cartridges and pocket them in my vest.  Taking the pistol, I tuck it under my arm—

thump... thump...

—and leap from my prostrate position to my feet.  I make a mad dash for the door, hearing the killer make a strange noise that seems part auditory 'question mark' and part grunt behind me.  Suddenly, the room erupts in that horrid high-pitched keening and heavy footsteps explode behind like a breaking dam releasing its waters.  I keep my head down and eyes on the floor so that I do not step on the dead woman as I run like the dickens.  I clear each hurdle, glancing up and seeing the door ever closer, knowing that freed—

That’s when the killer grabs my arm, wrenching me backward.  My arm feels as if it's in a vise, someone recklessly turning the wench.  I spin around like a top, my natural instincts wresting control and my body moving like one of those automatons serving the food in Wanamaker's restaurant: quickly, precisely, and without independent thought.  The pistol in my hand whips across the killer's face slamming off the multi-eyed helmet and cracking two of the portals.  The vise-grip lessens for a moment and I wrest myself free.

Immediately, I bolt in the direction of the door.  Throwing it open, I fling my body out into the hallway with such force that I lose my footing and hit the wall.  Bouncing off the plastered hallway, I recover just enough to plant one foot in front of the other and run as if the devil himself were after me.  As I had planned – and hoped – there are explosions of sounds from behind me as something large knocks over furniture, rips wood out of the doorframe, and spills framed photos off the wall.  Its thunderous footsteps clamber behind me but I do not look back.

No, I press on, turning the corner and barreling down the hallway that leads to the grand staircase.  It is now, though, that I allow myself a glance back.  The killer is a stone's throw away, the massive form turning a small hallway table into kindling—

Instantly, I discover that of all the times to glance back, this moment was the worst... for I cannot see the dead body suddenly at my feet before I am tripping over it.  I have a moment's conscientious thought regarding that I am about to fall down a flight of stairs before I am actually falling.  In that time, I tell myself to tuck my body into a roll, eager to put my torso between the stairs and any vital organs that probably shouldn't connect violently with wood.  I plan to use my hands as rudders that I will use to direct my fall.  I am ready.  But reality is far worse than fiction.  I learn instantly, that it makes no difference, one cannot control chaos.

The fall is graceless and disorienting.  I can scarcely tell which end is up and which is down.  My world is just a succession of spinning horizons and painful spasms as limbs connect with stairs and banisters.  The pistol goes crashing off somewhere and I feel the iron fist strike wood with a thunderous tattoo, splinters showering my body.  A white searing pain explodes on the back of my skull.

Just when I think that I will roll forever, like some twisted backwards Atlas, I plow into the bottom landing and my battered frame stops on the marble floor.  The stone feels cool under my warm skin.  I have no idea what kind of damage my body has sustained for I hurt everywhere.  It seems impossible to tell if one place hurts more than the other to indicate more severe wounds.  All the pain can tell me is one thing: I'm alive.

creak...

And that the killer is at the top of the stairs.

Turning painfully toward the steps, I can see the shape of it approaching the top of the stairwell.  Though the building lay in the shadow of the airship, which I can make the shape of it out in the evening sky, an evening light filters down.  It renders the world in shades of a blue as if I donned one of those fancy colored-lens spectacles.

creak...

The killer steps into the moonlight, its towering frame illuminated.  It takes the slow steps as if it is unsure of its footing or is merely stalking its prey.  I cannot analyze its behavior for I am finding it impossible to even understand the sight of the creature that descends the steps before me.  There are so many things wrong about what I am seeing that I scarcely know where to begin.

The stout legs are encased in an armor that is bulky and intricately decorated with unfamiliar symbols and glyphs.  This armor covers legs and torso and small stubby arms.  The plating across its chest looks dented and marred with signs of battle.  The creature's hands have four long fingers tipped in black claws.  On top of broad shoulders, sits an oval shape that looks to be a helmet adorned with twenty small portholes—

Suddenly a bright light comes on above.  I immediately find the source of the light: the airship.  The airship bathes this part of the city in an almost-blinding light as if it were searching for something.  However, the light suddenly begins to flicker as if someone were turning it on and off... at varying lengths of time.

Code.

The killer on the stairs pivots towards the ceiling and the lights I had seen in the upstairs hallway flash on again.  This time, though, I'm a stone's throw from the killer so I can see that the light is coming out of the portholes.

And the light is pulsating.

My growing sense of dread seems to suddenly crest and that need to flee pulsates like the light.  Moving my limbs experimentally, I find that they respond to my brain's directions with little physical resistances.  However as I stand up, one of Poe's cartridges falls out of my vest pocket, flittering to the ground and spilling the gunpowder it encased through a tear in the paper.  I pick up the cartridge only to find that it's stuck to a wad of chewing gum someone had left on the floor.

"Wha— What in God's name?" a voice suddenly wails from behind me.

I painfully turn to find a young woman in a plain white dress no different from the two dead women I've seen today.  She's standing just outside a glass door, one hand on the doorknob and her other shielding her face from the pulsating light.  Her face contorts in horror as she stares at the creature on the stairs.  But when the creature's lights suddenly stop pulsating and it turns towards the young woman, her face suddenly blanches white and the scream that erupts from her lips chills me to the bone.  The creature returns with its keening and begins to shuffle hurriedly down the stairs.