House of Boo

[Cyco†]

((B13 continued from In the Wake of the Bunt))

James' headache wasn't doing any better by the time he reached the edge of the forest. In fact he was starting to feel out-of-sorts. Kind of fuzzy. So he took another aspirin.

There was a small chapel just nearby, the ground leading up to it littered with tombstones. It was quiet; after some consideration James decided to go take a look. Cautiously he climbed over the rusty iron perimeter fence and made his way over, keeping a sharp eye out for anyone else. He pressed an ear to the sturdy wooden double doors. It didn't sound like anyone was in there. Still, he was beginning to get a bad vibe. He looked back again. Maybe--

--James blinked. He could've sworn he saw someone. But no, as far as he could tell there was nobody in the graveyard except him. Was someone hiding behind a tombstone?

"Hello?" he called, a bit quieter than he'd have liked to. He waited. Nothing. Shaking his head, he pushed the doors open and went inside. There were a few rows of pews and an alter, but really nothing else inside the small building. Nobody in there. James closed the doors and grabbed a spot on one of the front pews, rubbing his forehead and trying to make the woozy feeling go away. Maybe water would help. He dug into the daypack and noticed a few bricks of large calibur ammunition. So the rifle wasn't already loaded?

'Better I find out now I guess.' He withdrew one of the clips and examined it, then eyed the chamber over. It seemed simple enough. James took the clip and began to feed it into the rifle, fairly confident that he was doing it right. Finally he pressed the magazine all the way in.

He'd never heard of "Garand thumb" before, which was the main reason why when the bolt locked quickly and (extremely) painfully shut on his poor digit he was so fucking surprised. He let out a cry of (extreme) pain and dropped the rifle with a clatter, doing an undignified little dance and shouting blasphemies at the top of his lungs.

"FUCK! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT! You COCKSUCKER!"

Finally the initial flare died down to a still-quite-painful throb as James stuck the thumb in his mouth and bit down for about a minute. He paused, glancing at the cross above the altar and grumbled.

"Oh, uh...oops."

In any case it seemed as if the rifle was now loaded. James retrieved his firearm and shouldered the daypack. He was just able to fit another of the clips into his pocket--

--there it was again. There was someone in his peripheral vision. He whirled around quickly but once again they vanished. But wait, how could there've been anyone in there with him? The door was still shut, and he could see every corner. James did a 360 turn to doublecheck, as if he might've actually missed someone standing in plain view with a lampshade over their head.

He dropped the M1 again and let out a cry of surprise and alarm, falling backward onto the ground with an unpleasant bump as his eyes came back to the altar and he finally caught sight of the elusive stalker. It all made sense now.

Big Boo cackled in impish delight, his monstrous repulsive tongue dripping ectoplasmic saliva and his razor-sharp teeth glinting in the light that seeped in through the stained glass.

"You! W-w-what do you want!?" James gasped in terror, throwing a hand in front of his face and reaching blindly behind him to grab the rifle. Boo cackled in response and James remembered that Boos didn't speak English, so he was really up shit creek. Finally his hand came to rest on his weapon, so he brought it around and frantically squeezed off a shot. The recoil knocked him back against the floor, although when he sat back up quickly he was horrified to find that the giant white marshmallowey ghost was immune to bullets. James felt suffocated by the abominable stench eminating from Boo's grinning maw.

"Shit!" James cursed as he scrambled to his feet, making a mad dash to the door. As he took flight he could see several more of the grotesque apparitions spawn en masse out of the stained glass windows, all roaring that same blood-chilling laughter. He darted through the doors and out into the graveyard, mortified to find a horde of the leering white demons waiting for him. Fighting down not only an immense mortal fear but what seemed even like a touch of madness, James pumped his legs desperately to escape. The awful cackling echoed continuously in his head. He was going to hell.

Also his thumb really hurt.

((continued in The Legend of the Flower of Woe))