It's never enough. It's never
enough for this goddamn fruity masquerade bullshit. I march over to the first homeless bum I see.
"You. All the homeless people are getting sick. Tell my why."
She stares up at me, light from fire reflecting in murky, almost white eyes.
"What? Get away from me! Stay way from my aluminum cans! They're mine!"
I pull the glock from my waistband and smash the handle into her cheekbone. She falls backwards, half crying, half groaning. I stand over her and hold the gun up to her face.
"Where. Are you getting. Sick."
I can barely make out what she says over her squirming and terrified sobbing.
"T-T-Tin Can Bill! He's b-b-been jabberin' about some kind of monster.. says.. s-s-says it took him away somewhere and got him sick, that's... h-h-he's right across the alley by that bar! He's the guy you want!"
"Thank you. You have a nice day."
I slip the pistol back in my waistband and head through the alley. I really,
really wish all the bullshit I go through could be solved as quickly as that.
"Are you Tin Can Bill?"
"Huh? Who's there? Old Bill can't see too good these days. I-is that you, Betty? I ain't got no booze tonight, sorry. You may as well just clear out of here." He coughs up what's got to be a lung, the same cough Hannah had back in her bed at the apartment building.
"I'm not Betty, I'm with CDC, I need you to tell me how you got sick."
"Oh... yeah, I might be able to, bt I'm awful thirsty tonight, miss. Could you spare five bucks for a man who's been down on his luck?"
I pull a wad of clipped together cash from my pocket and toss it at him.
"Here's five hundred up front. There's another five hundred as soon as you tell me how you got sick."
He stares at the money in his hands like he can't believe it's real.
"Oh... oh my god.. thank you! Thank you miss! Oh by god I always loved the government..."
"Mr. Bill, your story please."
"Alright, I know you ain't going to believe old Bill, because I been tellin' my friends and the cops and everyone since it happened and people just say that it's the hootch talkin' and nothing more, but it was a
monster. A monster with his face all twisted and ugly, teeth longer'n your finger and eyes... piss yellow and full o' hate. I never seen eyes like that before... still... still can't sleep 'cause of them most nights."
"He grabbed me, threw me over his shoulder, t-t-took me to the bad place... the dark place... oh god the smell... worse than anything I've- and then he bit me, my neck... Oh god, i-it was horrible!"
He calms down somewhat, memory of the attack fading.
"...don't remember too much after that. Blacked out and woke up here in my alley. Haven't been feeling too well since then."
"And how did he find you?"
"Came up through the sewers, he did. Just... around the corner there." Another coughing fit. "Don't... go down there though... not without the army... maybe not even with the army, it's a bad... bad place, friend. You gotta promise me... you gotta promise you won't let that monster come back and take me there again..."
"You have my word, Mr. Bill, you will never see the monster again."
There's another coughing fit. I recognize this one. He collapses on the ground in a fit of wheezing, coughing and gagging. After a few moments of struggling, he lies still. I reach down and pick up the money clip.
I'll have to remember that trick, although I might need to supply a less natural means of death. I walk down the alley to where Tin Can Bill had indicated the monster emerged from.
That's real fucking swell, I haven't waded through enough shit lately.
At least I've got steady changes of clothes now.
The sewer's about what I expected, dark, nauseating, disgusting and it's all I can do to move through the sewage without retching.
If only the aqueducts of Rome were such a wonder as this. I hear heavy breathing coming from somewhere up ahead, and the splashing of footsteps getting farther into the distance.
We'll see about that.
It isn't long before I come to what's either a natural blockage or a makeshift barricade. Either way, it's easy enough scramble over.
On the other side is a vast cavern with row after row of support pillars running the entire length of it.
There's a light coming from what looks like a hallway off the left of the room.
I can't put my finger on it but it seems like I'm getting warm.
I wonder if that's the metro worker the news mentioned went missing? No, doesn't look like a maintenance uniform. Probably nobody, just a soon to be addition to the pile of bodies in the corner. I walk forward a few more steps when the air in front of me begins to displace and out of nothing walks a hulking, disfigured Nosferatu. He smiles at me, his voice harsh and rasping.
"Found your way down here, did you? Following the smell of entrails and rotting flesh? Looking for a free meal,
little bloodsucker?" He stretches his arms upwards, his voice shouting. "THERE'S MEAT GALORE IN MY KINGDOM!"
I take a step back, left hand raised instinctively as some kind of laughable shield.
"Hold on, alright? First off who the fuck are you?"
He licks his lips, savoring the taste of something likely unhygienic.
"Brother Kanker, they call me... High Lord in the diseased halls of the dead. Look around you! The blood, the bloated bodies, the maggot-ridden mortal shells... These are the signs, the coming of a new age!"
"And what, god forbid, new age is that?"
"The darkest dawn is almost upon us! Come! Join the Brotherhood of the Ninth Circle in these last nights, spreading our disease upon the earth, sharing this unholy communion with our human herd!"
"Alright, doomsday cult wants to wipe out the world, fair enough. Why start with the homeless?"
"They are the weak, sick, hopeless. I bring them a new purpose. They are the vessels of darkness, carrying the diseased truth in their veins."
"Yeah, that's great and all but after all the plague bearers I've killed, by my count your the only one left."
He glares at me through the almost palpable stench.
"You did not kill Bishop Vick."
"No, but now I have a name."
I pull down on the trigger and it takes him a few moments to realize what's happening. He rushes towards me through the gunfire, claws growing out of his fingers until they become macabre bone talons. My skin reflexively hardens around me like an extra thick layer of leather. I almost don't want to see what I look like.
I run backwards, dodging and diving and he catches up, always keeping the Ingram trained on him, always keeping it firing.
He lands a few hits on the supporting columns, leaving deep gouges in their cement. He lands a few hits on me that barely feel.
There's a puff of ash as he vaporizes. A few days ago Gimble almost killed me, and now High Lords of Diseased Halls can't even hurt me despite trying their damnedest. Was I just that bad? Am I just that good now? What the
hell's going on?
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice something Kanker must have dropped in his first charge.
Looks like a flier with some kind of flaming skull on it. A little bit disappointed as an apocalyptic symbol, maybe I'm no better than I was, it's just that these guys are really that bad?
What was it Kanker'd said they called themselves?
The Brotherhood of the Ninth Circle.