Interface: Hollows and Bones

Chapter Two: Pale Old Lady

Arlo couldn't understand it, it was something straight out of Aria's video games and shows. It had wings made of skin that seemed to be lined with talons at connected angles. Its face was like that of a devil's, exactly like the gargoyles from movies. Its hand contained talons that were fastened into the soldier's chest, its talons pierced through three levels of kevlar.

"Holy!" Jake screamed and released a rain of bullets on the creature which didn't seem fazed, every other person stepped back, but the beast just kept on working forward.

Arlo who seemed to understand their titanium piercing, self exploding, poison ejecting bullet from the MAC-114 won't work. He ran straight for one of the fires that lit the room and threw it at the monster, and he followed it with a grenade. His team dove off the ground and an explosion shook the room. The creature collapsed into cement.

"What the hell was that?"

"I think that was a Gargoyle!" Arlo said. His sister had always forced him to sit down and watch different shows and movies. They even played games together and one of them was D & D and all other fantasy and horror stuff. So he knew a lot from fiction and his head was about to explode now that it seemed one of them was actually existing. His heart, his heart, wanted to escape from his chest. It wanted to run.

"Retreat," he commanded, but it seemed that the room felt the need to disobey him, and the door slammed shut immediately.

"Oh Gods! Ghost stories!" Jake screamed as three to four more gargoyles crawled from the walls seething at them. And to cap it up, the lights went out.

Their visors couldn't sense them, they possessed no heat signature. They were dead men walking. "Switch to Grenade launchers!" Arlo screamed. "Light them up!"

The next second was a bout of explosions and noise. After a while, the lights in the room decided to join the game and they started to flicker on and off. "Requesting backup from HQ! We are under attack from some things! Requesting backup! Requesting an Exfil team! Over!"

"Negative! Request declined." his captain's voice rang from the earpiece as an eerie scream cut through the words. One of them was getting his red ripped off.

"What do you mean Captain, we are dying here." he complained.

"The mission is an unsanctioned one. I cannot waste resources on it. You are on your own!"

"What? You. You! If I ever get out of this, I will find you and I will kill you!" he screamed.

"I am sorry! Over and Out!"

Arlo turned back as the light flickered on again. The gargoyles were all dead, but only three of them remained. "What did HQ say!"

"We are on our own."

Jake shifted in disbelief. "What?" he said. "Oh. Shit. Promised Vivian I will be back home. It's supposed to be a retrieval mission. Oh. Fuck. Fuck! Fuck this to hell." he screamed angrily. He let out a roar of explosion at another gargoyle hanging on the ceiling. The poor beast crumbled. "I am almost out of ammo."

Arlo didn't reply, he rushed for the door and dipped his hand in its middle crevice and with all his force pulled it backwards, it creaked a bit and the door opened a bit. "Jake!" he groaned. The latter turned back and understood.

"Cover me!" he said to the other soldier who was cussing out the foulest words.

They pulled the door open together, but they both knew if they left it, it would spring shut. "Nat get outta here!" they called to the soldier who turned back but kept on shooting at the ceiling. For some reason, the gargoyles were content with dying. They didn't try to rush at them in large numbers, they just appeared one after the other.

Nat jumped out of the space and dropped his gun just in case.

"Only one of us can fit in." Arlo said as Nat supported it from outside and it didn't do any work. They could only pull it, they couldn't push it. "Go, go on out! Say hi to Vivian for me."

Jake didn't think twice before flying in. Just as he did, the door slammed shut and silence covered the earth.

Arlo turned back slowly expecting to see an army of gargoyles coming for him, but he was standing in front of the corpse earlier. She stood in front of him, a wicked smile plastered on her pale face.

"You, I prayed you will be the last!" she said. "I loved the poem, it was nice." she said.

Arlo couldn't talk, he slipped his leg under Nat's gun. "Can you recite it again?"

"There is, a pale old lady in a frail black dress,"

"With her, thin old bones, too broken to stress,"

"They asked, how she walks with such finesse,"

"Revealed in her eyes with a glow of death."

He recited, there were no games he could play other than the one he was planning. "I am sorry Aria," he said. The memories they made playing across his mind at that moment. They had always had each other. Just them. He hoped she would receive his gratuity and get cured from the cancer. Then he did one last thing to fight for his life. Deep down he knew it was futile. Nothing good ever happens to him, it has always been one evil to the other. People always talked about highs and lows, he had always been low.

He lost his parents and two brothers in the stretch of ten years, life toyed with him slowly, killing them one after the other. Akin went first, next was Emmanuel, their father followed. Then mum. When he thought it was over, his sister went down. Now at last, the pale old lady his hear for him. He kicked Nat's gun upwards and caught it in mid air and went into a frenzy of shots. "Arrrghhh!" he continued to scream shooting with his eyes closed. After a while the guns clicked, their ammos done for. A thud made its way into his ears. He flicked his eyes open in hope.