Personal Risk Tolerance

[Frozen Smoke]

((Continued from I want a house on the hill by the ocean))

Austin inhaled through his nose, then exhaled judderingly, the cold air sticking to his throat with every frantic beat of his heart. The weight of the launcher in his hands rocked awkwardly forwards as he turned his head over his shoulder to look behind himself at Kay, giving her a silent nod of what he hoped was encouragement, before lifting it back up with white knuckled hands.

There was a knack to walking quietly – or at least quieter - over the mixture of snow, wood and gravel that lay underfoot. Press in with the side of your foot, then rock it flat, and repeat. It made every step a process to think about, and slowed the two of them to a crawl, but it beat the alternative of practically ringing a dinner bell as they hunted. It was here, they’d seen it as they crested the hill that partially shielded the village from the artic wind, although not nearly enough to be pleasant.

He’d felt very smart when he’d quickly grabbed Kay and made sure they went back down the hill to avoid highlighting themselves against the horizon, and approached around the side of it. Now, though, he wished he’d tried to take the shot from there. But he’d committed, and if he backed off, the opportunity to surprise the thing might never happen again. They just had to find where it was precisely, as opposed to generally.

Austin chewed his lip for a few moments as he looked around the side of the building. Nothing, again, but a whole lot more nothing than usual. The long expanse of sleet only broken up by a statue, before an opposing row of houses blocked it off. He pulled his head back, shaking it side to side as he did so. Too many angles to check, too many places for it to hide. Another shaky breath coursed through him.

His right hand stopped groping the trigger guard, and pointed towards the back door of the building they were standing behind, before making the motion of turning a handle to Kay. Maybe - no, positive thinking – there would be a window they could look out onto the square from.

[Pippi]

((Kay Poultier continued from I want a house on the hill by the ocean))

She’d been having second doubts about this plan from the moment they’d spotted their target from the side of the hill.

It had looked colossal even from their vantage point, meandering around the village as if it owned the place; and if it hadn’t been for the battalion cooped up in the airfield behind those weird laser obelisks, that would almost certainly be true. Kay knew that she wouldn’t have argued with a giant mutated polar bear wandering in to take over if she’d been living here. The thing wasn’t quite building-sized, but it sure had the heft and frame to topple a house or two over if it felt so inclined. It was certainly much, much bigger than she was; a rare statement, and one she was normally delighted by. Here? Not quite so much.

So how was it, now they were actually in the village and trying to stalk this big bastard, that it was able to vanish without a goddamn trace? It wasn’t leaving any footprints - pawprints - whateverprints behind. The falling sleet was doing a bang-up job of both covering them up and muffling any sound of movement. That included their own, of course, but when you gave a boon to two parties, the one previously at a disadvantage was, guess what, still at a disadvantage. She felt like a total idiot, trying to copy Austin’s slow, stealthy footsteps. Probably looked like an idiot too. She had two left feet at the best of times. Guarantee it would be only a couple minutes before she fell flat on her stupid face.

But why stop there? Cause she felt like she was about to spew everywhere with each passing step, just totally unload all over her boots. She was doing her best to hold it in, her passing knowledge of polar bears reminding her that they had an insanely good sense of smell, but that just made her feel like she was about to burst instead. The tank of fuel on her back felt even heavier than it had during the hillside trek, like she’d filled it up with bricks. Her entire body was twitching, on the lookout for even the tiniest sign of movement, and that included her bloody index finger, flicking between trigger guard and trigger itself. Which really wasn’t a gamble she wanted to be a part of, given she was walking directly behind Austin. And directly behind Austin’s rocket launcher.

It’d just be her rancid luck, after all their planning and with all their firepower, for this massive dickhead to be able to go fully invisible, wouldn’t it? Probably trying to loop around them right now as they cowered round the back of this building.

God, she was so fucking out of her depth here. Hunting monsters, for chrissakes; she could barely hunt down a missing pen in her room. Trying to be some kinda bionic woman, fuel lines running up her arms to blast fire out of her hand. It was insanity. Total lunacy. She shouldn’t be here. She should be anywhere, anywhere at all but here. She was gonna hold Austin back, she would get them both killed no doubt, and this whole stupid waste of time would end with nothing but a whimper and a fizzle.

Ah, damnit. She was getting inside her own head again. One bad habit of too many to count. She needed to treat herself to a smoke once this was - one way or another - over.

Kay tilted her head back until it pressed against the cold, hard wall of the building she was hunkered up against, and let out a long, silent sigh. Out of her depth? Yeah, no shit, Poirot. They were all swimming in the deep end here, making it up as they went along, probably being forced to change their tactics once every half hour. Aiming to directly kill people? Insane. Trying to hunt down these monsters? Insane. Trying to avoid both monster and murderer. Insane. Looking to directly take down the pricks running this whole thing? Certifiably insane. And the knowledge that this was all utterly batshit, that the chance of failure was horrifyingly likely, that they were all running blind directly into the wind? That was loud, sure. The desire to be known, though, whether in life or death? That drive, that need, to be not just more than her given number and her details on a piece of paper or Excel sheet, but to be Kay Poultier? That was a deafening roar.

Again, she was Welsh. You ever heard a Welsh choir sing? Now that was a force unlike anything on God’s green Earth.

She gave Austin a quick nod before she shuffled closer to the back door, keeping herself as close to the wall as she could get without scraping her fuel tank against it. The handle turned silently, and the door clicked open. Nice to know that even if whoever’d owned this place had been forced to leave without even locking up, they’d kept the hinges well oiled. She pushed the door further open, peering around the frame to glance inside. The smell of damp drifted out of the room, but nothing else followed. It was gloomy, it was dusty, but it was still.

Kay looked back at Austin to give him an encouraging thumbs up. And in that moment, that split-second that her back was facing the entrance, the wind saw fit to make its dramatic entrance upon the scene, picking up and rushing through this alleyway. The door swung, and swung hard, slamming shut with an echoing thud, snow dropping from the roof and onto Kay’s boots.

She froze up completely, the reverberations carrying on through her body, like ripples on a pond. Her eyes widened. Her skin, if it were at all possible, grew even colder still.

“Shhhite.”

So long, stealth. Nice knowing you.

[Help_U]

Chimera gave chase.

The confounding object kept moving. Kept evading it. The Chimera could not see how.

Every time it reached it, attempted to grab it - the object moved further.

The latest attempt to arrest it with a swipe had sent the object bounding across the steppe, coming to rest not far outside of the building that Austin and Kay were standing beside.

It hadn't taken notice of them, far too preoccupied with its current foe that had the audacity to roll gently in the wind.

Chimera's two largest eyes narrowed. It lowered itself to the ground, wiggling as it adjusted itself into a perfect position.

Then - its powerful back legs propelled it up and forward, coming down hard on the oil drum it had been chasing. With a satisfying crunch, the drum crumpled flat. Victory.

The Chimera sat on top of the flattened drum, evidently satisfied. Its attention was not held for long, however.

Scent on the wind. The sound of a door slamming shut. Snow, sliding off of the roof of a nearby building.

Slowly, it began to hunt again.

[Frozen Smoke]

A terrible stillness settled, just for a moment.

Austin’s breathing stopped, and it felt like his heart paused with it, as he listened for the response to their unintentional call. He almost willed himself to believe it hadn’t heard the sound, that it would all be okay, that they’d get a second chance at this. His eyes and head slowly swivelled to look over at Kay, mouth beginning to open as wordless thoughts rushed to escape it.

And then, chaos.

His feet were moving before he thought about it, pushing through the now open door and slamming into the frozen floorboards of the house. He stumbled a few steps in as one foot landed on a threadbare rug, one hand just finding purchase against the wall as he came to a stop, covering him in a shower of paint flakes. The RPG, now only held in one hand, slid off his shoulder and fell to the ground with a dull clunk that rang painfully through his already over-rotated wrist.

“Ah fuck, shit, please”

He teetered over the dropped weapon, hurling it up into his stomach as his momentum carried him forwards, cradling it against his body – protecting it as he came to a loud, crunching halt against the opposite wall of the building.

He had been wrong, there were no windows on the other side of the door, just bulbs which hung lifelessly from the ceiling and a broken skylight that stopped the whole room from being mired in darkness. That almost worked to his benefit now, as there was only one way in that he could see, and he could guard it. It would just come down to what was quicker, the monster, or a rocket.

Austin’s money was on the rocket.

His right arm screamed at him as he forced it to hold the grip properly, index finger tentatively placed against the sliver of metal that would test his theory. The sight was lined up, fixed squarely on the glowing portal that led to the outside. His eyes burned as he fought the instinct to blink, and every hitching breath fogged up in front of him, as his nose was filled with the smell of rot that permeated the house.

[Pippi]

She hadn’t expected Austin to be able to move that fast. ‘specially not with the huge metal tube cradled in his arms. She could practically see the silence shatter around him as he bolted, making her jump backwards as he burst through the door and caused it to clatter against the wall once again. His stumbling footsteps echoed as he rushed deeper inside.

And Kay stood still, heart hammering, panic rising at a rapid pace.

Her fight or flight response had caught midway at ‘freeze’, rooting her to the spot, paralyzing her with fear, knowing that she would see that huge hulking thing padding round the corner of the house and towards her any second now. She was sure she could hear it, the slow, ponderous thud of its footsteps as it moved towards her, taking its time, knowing it had her trapped. She was breathing far too fast, harsh gasps for air causing fog to billow up around her.

Fuck.

Fuck.

“F-fuck!”

Like someone had flipped a switch, pushed a button, or slapped her upside the head, Kay suddenly burst back into life. She had to move, had to at least try, at least fucking try and do something rather than stand there like a moron, playing the role of live bait. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let herself die yet. She was still just a number, just a point of data, just a name that wasn’t herself. Give her a 5% chance of success, sure; worse odds had still come through. Stranger things had happened. And that was the exact sorta bet you’d stake everything on when you were scared and desperate.

If Austin could haul arse with his oversized, overweight weaponry, so could she.

Kicking up a spray of snow, Kay ran into the house after Austin, head up just in time to see him all set up and facing the doorway. She ducked to the side, further into the gloom and the dank, stale rot, covering her nose with one hand. She pressed herself up against the wall, eyes flicking off to the side just long enough to notice the hallway leading to, presumably, the front door, before she looked back at her partner. She was well out of the way now. She hoped to God she was, at least. Even someone without any training in heavy fire wouldn’t miss at a perfect ninety degree angle, right? Right?

C’mon, you twat, there were actual threats to piss your knickers over.

“Take the shot as soon as you see it, yeah?” Kay hissed, instinct still tying her to stealth, even now that it was as useful as a chocolate teapot. “Don’t hesitate, just go for it, okay? I can-”

She swallowed, bit her lip until she drew blood, and took a deep shuddering breath.

“I can follow up. Douse it in flames. I’m. Um.”

She fixed her gaze to the open door and kept her mouth shut.

[Help_U]

Chimera locked eyes with the human. The other had ran further into the structure, fleeing it as soon as it had made its presence known.

The human was unsteady. It had struggled to regain its footing. It did not run. That it did not run was unusual. The Chimera froze.

"Hi there."

It stepped forward, testing the human.

Then, the world burst into fire and colour. Something slammed into the Chimera's shoulder, hard. The creature shrieked, knocked back by the impact.

Scrambling, it looked towards the projectile lying on the ground in front of it, and the droplets of blood seeping from the contusion on its shoulder.

The pair of eyes looked back at the human, who was on the ground. Enraged, the Chimera let out a piercing roar. The sound bore out from the earliest part of its sense-memories, simultaneously an amalgam of all it knew and something more primordial still.

To the humans, it no doubt sounded alien.

To the Chimera, it was rage.

Propelling itself forward, the Chimera burst through the edges of the door frame and landed squarely on the human who had accosted it. Whatever pain the creature felt was subsumed in waves of adrenaline, as it poured every mote of fury it could muster on the human's soft, fragile form.

[Frozen Smoke]

The sound cut through Austin, the reverberations and mangled intonation of many different voices speaking at once carried with it such a terrible feeling of wrongness that it stopped him for just a moment.

He could swear he heard Peter Harrison's distinct inflection in there.

A floorboard creaked, and his eyes and mind refocused on the task at hand - shutting it the fuck up, for good.

"SUCK SHIT F-"

Austin snatched at the trigger, the rocket howled as it's fuel ignited, and a stream of superheated exhaust slammed into the wall he was just inches away from. He didn't have the time to realise his mistake as the ground hurtled up to meet him, only noticing that it was moving much faster than the last time this had happened.

He was already in the dull embrace of unconciousness by the time the monster tore his right arm from his torso and tossed it aside, splattering the room with blood to match it's own.

P024 - AUSTIN STANTON: Deceased

[Pippi]

She’d had every intention to follow up on her statement, when she’d burst through the door and taken her position off in the shadows and out of sight. She’d really, truly, been planning on lighting the creature up and burning it to nothing more than ash and cinder.

She’d been ready, she’d been so sure she was ready. She had to do this, didn’t she? There wasn’t any way of staying alive in this situation other than pulling the trigger and vaporising this monstrosity where it stood. Fail that, and it would rip her to shreds and shatter her bones, then turn and enact the same level of horrific violence to Austin. Or the other way around. She highly doubted it’d be picky. Kill or die. That was the choice they had to make. Because if they didn’t die here, they certainly would when it tracked them down later on, the scent of prey firmly trapped in its nostrils. They would never truly be safe, so long as at least one of those creatures remained standing.

She had stood, perpendicular to the entrance, breathing out heavily through her nose, blood slowly trickling over her tongue and down her throat from where she’d chomped down on her lip, teeth firmly embedded in her own flesh to stop herself from screaming until she was hoarse. She had watched as the creature slowly lumbered into view, warped head on the wrong side of being recognisable, its massive frame blotting out the light coming from the doorway. She flinched, but kept her feet firm to the ground, as Austin pulled the trigger and his rocket launcher roared, the rafters shaking as the missile flew towards the chimera.

Looking back, Kay couldn’t say what, exactly, had caused her lock up and freeze in place, for her to drop the nozzle of the flamethrower so that it scraped across the ground, for her to clasp her hand to her mouth to stop all her fear and despair from pouring out.

Maybe it had been the sight of the Chimera itself, matting fur and rotting stench and warts and all, so much bigger and so much more clearly inhuman than it had appeared on the video, a walking mass comprised of muscle and teeth and claw. Maybe it had been the sight of Austin getting rocked off his feet by the backblast from the rocket launcher, flung sprawling to the ground, limp and unmoving, a trail of blood slowly seeping out from beneath his head. Maybe it was the fact that the missile had impacted, had left behind a bloody crater - but had done absolutely nothing to stop it down, or even to slow it in its tracks. Maybe it was the voice, the speech that had come from echoing out of its mouth, the statement uttered from a being that should never have been able to communicate with words.

Maybe it was the voice in her head, the one that she would fervently deny ever existed, that she would lie and bluff and do anything possible to pretend had never occurred when pressed about it. The one that told her, over and over, in no uncertain terms;

“If Austin dies, that’s one less person stopping you from living.”

She stuck around long enough to watch as the creation pounced, overwhelming Austin’s unconscious form, by which point her shuddering, choked cries of terror were inaudible beneath the cacophony of flesh being ripped apart and bones turning to splinters. Scraps and salvage were flung from the corpse, his bag and body ripped apart; a flashlight, a bottle of water, a single rocket, endless reels of fabric and meat and sinew. The bloodstained launcher skidded along the floor, colliding with the wall and leaving a heavy dent in the skirting board.

There was time enough for Kay to scoop it up in her arms. A better carrying method could wait. She bolted down the corridor, a trinket or two falling from her arms, until she reached the front entrance, flinging it open and throwing her ill-gotten gains down into the snow. In their place went chunks of fallen stone, empty boxes, half-filled bins, an abandoned desk from just inside the house. The door slammed shut, the debris was piled up against it. She was under no illusion that this would hold firm forever. It simply had to stick for long enough.

Long enough to pile everything into her now heaving, straining bag. Long enough to turn tail and run. Long enough to leave the village behind and not look back.

Long enough to abandon her sins to the uncaring cold.

((Kay Poultier continued in Bottom of the sea's the top of another world))