The Configured

Charles smiled sadly. "It's perfectly alright... " Charles looked around, was it him or are the lights going lower... the darkness compressing in on him and his companions... he shook his head, they were fine. opening the Door, Charles twisted the knob and slowly pulled the door...the rusty hinges squeaking like a dying rodent.And with a great CRASH! a large The heavy oak top shelf and all of the supplies on it fell on him.
 
“Right, right,” Chuckles nods in a sagely manner as Ray explains his uncle, chugging back a gulp of beer before speaking again, “I hear you, man. I had this uncle Kev way back in the day, used to go on about how the government was controlled by Jews and how they were monitoring his phone calls.” He scratches his chin and stares into empty space for a moment, before laughing. “Wound up getting busted on a meth sting, the crazy old shit. Think he's still in the slammer--”

Chuckles' musings are cut short by Charise grabbing the broom handle and coming away with a bloodied hand. He follows Ray over to check the injury, his eyes widening slightly. “Shit, girl, that's a hell of a cut right there! Hang on...” Placing his beer down on the counter, he begins to rummage through his jacket's many pockets. Junkie jackets are incredible things, capable of storing a vast array of items (usually drug-related) and filled with little hidden pockets that only the owner seems to know about. Finally locating the right pocket, Chuckles tugs out a polka-dot handkerchief and offers it over to Charise. “Ain't used that one, don't worry,” he says with a grin, “Press it onto the wound and raise your arm above your head. Should stop the blood flow from reaching the cut so much, stem the bleeding a bit.”
 
Charise glanced at the handkerchief the junkie looking offered her. She really hoped he spoke the truth and took it, it was better than nothing after all. "Thank you. By the way, I'm not entirely sure I remember your name. I'm Charise." she awkwardly asked while trying to cover the wound with the handie the best she could, "I'd shake your hand but.." She shrugged sure that she was looking great with both arms above her head trying to press her hand with a bloody handkerchief.
 
Ray picked up the broom and watched as Chuck helped Charise raise her arms over her head. He turned the implement over in his hands, then blinked a few times as if he had forgotten to speak. "Yeah, I met Chuck on my 18th birthday. Some...er.. some friends had cuffed me to the railings at the library. He... er... well, he came by and picked the lock."

"An' gave him a coat to cover his little man," Chuck added with a wink to Charise.

The two men chuckled, one heartily, the other uncertainly. Charise might have noticed how strange Ray's laugh was - how nervous and forced - were it not that Chuck's laughter suddenly became something else. His laugh turned into a cough, then a splutter, and then suddenly he was doubling over.

"Shit man, what was in that b--" He squatted down and brought a fist to his mouth as rasping sounds came from his lungs. Finally, Chuck's whole body buckled and the junkie fell onto his hands and knees, coughing up a goblet of blood. It spattered the floorboards with red and he groaned in pain.

Charise lowered her arms, about to help the man. But then something glinted in the corner of her eye. It was a razorblade, smeared with her blood. Ray had pulled it from the broom handle, where it had been embedded all this time. The broom swung out. The whole length of wood slammed into her face and she was thrown against the typewriter shelf, her back colliding with the half-open cabinet door.

She slumped to the ground, and Ray left his two friends prone, dropping the broom between them as he carried on with the razorblade in his fingertips.

The basement stairs awaited him. He started down them, through the dimming lights, and found the others suitably distracted. Charles had fallen by the supply closet and brought down a cascade of shelves and chemical bottles on top of him. Gin and Kami were standing over him and trying to help.

"What happened?" Ray asked the question without emotion as he came to the bottom of the stairs.

"These shelves are jarg, fella," Gin explained while waving at the closet, "Brained 'im something proper they did."

"He's bleeding." Kami was cradling Charles's head, which was already trickling blood onto the floorboards.

Ray nodded. "Good..." The word was uttered darkly, almost breathlessly. "That just leaves one of you." And before any could puzzle this strange comment, he swept his arm from left to right. The razorblade sliced up Kami's arm and across her shoulder, issuing a thin spray of blood as she yelped. The girl fell back and Ray launched forwards, trampling Kami and throwing his arms against Gin.

The bathroom door swung open from their weight. Gin crashed down on the bathroom tiles, her head barely grazing the toilet bowl, and in her daze she lost sight and sense of Ray. All she heard was the door swinging open again and footsteps fading deeper into the basement.

Ray was gone.

And each of them had been blooded.
 
It was dark, Kami couldn't see a thing she lay there feeling numb but then slowly her eyes adjusted to the dark and she forced her self up and gasped at the sudden pain that hit her shoulder that she was holding on to and noticed fresh blood seeping out. Kami rummaged her hand about looking for something then she realized as she pulled off her scarf wrapping it tightly around her wound and holding it as she looked around and couldn't find Gin anywhere she saw Charles knocked out.

"Charles snap out of it please wake up.." Kami shook him and spoke, she didn't know why Ray had done this it was all a mystery to her and she wanted to escape but she couldn't just leave everyone here. She wondered if Charise and that Chuck guy were okay.

"Somebody, anybody help us, can you hear me?" She called out hoping someone from above could hear her and come to their aid. This all seemed so horrifying, Kami was holding in her fear and tears as her heart started beating fast er by the second in the silence.
 
Charles awoke. "Ugh... What happened...?" Glancing around he saw Kami, and then he noticed the blood leaking from his head wound, "Kami? are are you alright?" He asked her as he reached into his pocket for a ragged tie-die cloth that didn't fit his personality at all. He then undid his tie looking around ,awaiting an explanation to why Gin was gone and Kami was bleeding onto her scarf.then after tying the cloth to his head with his tie he stood brushing the soap suds and cracked bits of paint off. holding his hand out to Kami he smiled slowly, with a depressed show of his teeth. "Come on."
 
There was an exquisite white hot moment of pain that almost brought Gin to the divine. She had glanced the crude symbol she traced under the sink as she fell and it was this image that burned into her eyes even as they shut in response to the impact. When they opened again, Gin was pissed.
Gin burst from the bathroom, eyes a drunken blaze of Satanic fury. She tore off into the darkness after Ray; ready to vent her feelings of betrayal via the toilet tank lid she wielded like a truncheon.

“Skullduggerous gobshitting toerag!”
 
"Ray..he went crazy, he spoke weird stuff and before I knew it he attacked us all. I tried calling out to Charise and Chuck but there was no response.Oh God you're hurt bad.." Kami spoke as she saw Charles wrap a tie around his wound, he got up and offered his hand with a smile that seemed to hold a lot of pain in a way. Kami took his hands and got on her feet stumbling a little as the pain on her arm made her wince.

"I wonder.." Kami had just spoken when she saw a rather angry and crazy looking Gin dart out to look for Ray. Kami had frozen, the sight of Gin like that made her feel as if she was about to rip her flesh apart but she stormed off instantly.

"Good lord she looked possessed." Kami spoke clutching on to her wound and leaning against the wall, "What do you suggest we do Charles?" She asked softly looking around, she was worried too much blood loss would make her faint and she tried her best to stay focused.
 
It's a sad testament to the spiral that his life has taken, but Chuckles is no stranger to one of the more dangerous side-effects of his favourite pastime. Overdoses are what have landed him in both the hospital, jail and rehab more times than he cares to remember. It's a sensation he's acutely acquainted with, even if he does not like to think about it; the feeling of one's own body rising up in rebellion against the crap that's been pumped through it, of your chest feeling like it's about to go supernova.

So when Chuckles counts the effects of whatever drug Ray has just pumped through him as one of the most painful experiences of his life thus far, it's not something to be taken lightly.

For how long he lies there, blinded by agony, clutching his chest and writhing silently, he cannot say. What has been but a few minutes has felt like hours, like a torture that never intended to end. But ever, ever so slowly, the pain begins to subside. Ever, ever so slowly, Chuckles begins to regain control of his body. And ever, ever so slowly, he pushes himself up onto his knees, coated in a layer of cold sweat and panting like a man who's just narrowly outrun the hounds of hell.

Nearby to where he kneels, Chuckles spies the shattered glass of the bottle Ray had given him. He shakes his head as he sucks in air, his mind still reeling. Something isn't adding up right. He's missed an important detail, overlooked a crucial fact. There's no way that the Raymond Thorne he knows could have just perpetrated this meticulously planned act of sudden and extreme violence. As far as Chuck knows, Ray's never even been in a fight, let alone willingly hurt another human being.

There has to be something else going on here.

Movement is still a struggle, but with effort he manages to turn his head to look down at the prone form of Charise next to him. Either delirious or out cold from the blow of Ray's broom handle. Groaning slightly as he drags himself closer to her, Chuckles reaches down to try and shake her out of it.
“Girl, you gotta snap out of it right the fuck now. Cos we needed to not fucking be here five minutes ago.”

Hindsight, Chuck laments, is a total bitch.
 
Little did he know Charles's mind set was akin to a certain druggies. Hindsight is a bitch.
Charles detested cursing, he felt filthy when he said he felt angry when others did. but it was the only word to use in this situation. "lets find the others."
 
Kami nodded as the two slowly went up the stairs and when they reached the main reception desk area they saw Chuck and Charise.

Charise seemed knocked out cold and Chuck was shaking her up, Kami panicked at why Ray would do this. "Chuck what happened?" She asked holding on to her arm and then looked at Charles.

"Did Ray attack you guys too cuz he went crazy when he came after us down stairs and then vanished...also Gin she looked crazy mad and chased after him...it was scary literally."

Kami looked around the reception desk for anything to communicate with but there was no phone or anything. Kami reached in her coat pocket she had laid there and saw her phone's signals were all out. "No signals and the storm is getting worse." Kami sighs and slid down the desk trying to compose herself.
 
Charise slowly woke up to Chucks shaking. The first thing she noticed was the pain, before she noted the words spoken next to her. She groaned and pushed herself to a more sitting position. "It's hard to believe Ray would do something like this. Chuck are you sure you should be moving about?" she asked concerned and mumbling a bit, the picture of him doubling over in pain coughing still clear in her mind. She leaned on the cabin to get up, and another groan of pain escaped her lips. Her back emitted a sharp wave of pain as she tried to move. At least Ray had pulled the razor out before slamming the broom handle to her face. She was sure it would bruise quite nicely, but on the bright side, the pain from her back and face was overrunning the pain in her hand.
 
“I dunno what the fuck to believe right now, man,” Chuckles admits as he staggers to his feet, an unstable wobble forcing him to cling to the wall for support. Blood has spattered the white vest top he’s wearing under his heavy coat, and somehow he’s even paler than he was when he arrived. Charise is finally back in the land of the living, at least, and inquiring after his health. In response, he spits a gob of blood onto the floor before attempting a weak grin. “Prolly not, no, but it ain’t like I got much of a choice.”

Outside the storm continues to rage unabated, rain hammering against the windows like it’s trying to knock it’s way in under the force of the combined weight. Not exactly an attractive option, but given the choice between getting soaked and dealing with the possibly homicidal Ray roaming around the basement, the choice is clear. Gin can go all Rambo if she likes; Chuckles is exiting stage right out of this madhouse, with or without the others.

“A’ight, let’s make like a banana and get the fuck outta here. I’m not staying a minute longer with all this shit that’s going on.” Unstably, Chuckles begins to make his way towards the doors, briefly turning back around to look at the other friends of Ray. “You guys coming? I know this great place on 4th Street, cheap beer and damn good nachos.”

The thought of going to a doctor probably hasn’t even crossed his mind.

Cocaine is, as Rick James put it, a hell of a drug.
 
Chuck had barely finished speaking when Kami yelped. Beside her, Charise's eyes went wide and Charles lifted a hand to point past the man's shoulder. Turning back to the door, Chuck recoiled from the face that was looming there.

The stranger was pale and drenched in rain. Still staring at Chuck, he stuffed something into his mouth which was concealed from sight by the open/close sign. Then the door creaked open. Chuck caught a waft of scent and knew it all too well as the stink of the homeless. A drifter was before him, gaunt and in a ragged coat as filthy as his hair.

"An' who the fuck are you?" Chuck asked.

The question was met with a stare, unblinking and ponderous. It crossed from him to Kami, then to Charise, then Charles... and finally to the shelf along the left wall of the shop, where the typewriters lay. With the turn of his head Chuck had the slightest glimpse of the street behind him, where rats and insects were scurrying away through puddles and downpour. As if every living thing was deserting the shop as this man approached it.

It was a reedy, guttural voice that issued from the vagrant, wholly at odds with his appearance. The voice was better suited to a dying geriatric than a thirty-something drifter. Kami even noted an Asian slant in the accent.

"Her time has ended."



* * * * * *​



The basement was easy to navigate: a bathroom, stairs, corridor, utility space and storage room. Gin had come from the first, passed the second and glanced over the third and fourth in the midst of her frenzy. There was only one place left that Ray could have gone. Half-dragging, half-hefting the ceramic toilet tank lid, the girl barged through the storage door and felt her boots slide. The floor was wet. Light was coming from a single bulb. She used it to make out the room, and at once the lid fell from her hands in shock.


From the floorboards above the crimson liquid ran, down walls and plumbing pipes, through seams and wires. The room was drawing it like a starved organ and the blood was pooling between the beaten-up furniture that Ray had stored here. There were no flies, no vermin - not even the smell of death she would have imagined - only a metallic scent that touched the back of her throat and raised her hairs with a chill.

Ray was there, in the centre, knee-deep in the blood, his coat and hair red-flecked, his arms soaked. With one hand he was stroking something, and it was this - more than any other horror of this room - that made Gin recoil. For the thing that he was nursing had turned its gaze towards her.


"Don't be afraid, child."

Ray looked up, turning pale as he saw Gin. It was as if he had expected her to flee like the others. "Gin... I needed the blood... I couldn't... I love her!"

The skinless creature spoke again. Her voice was soft, intellectual, and completely without pain. She extended one fleshless, bloody hand up to Gin. "Come closer. Ray can't lift me by himself. Help me, Gin."



* * * * * *​



"The answer is on the keys." The vagrant was turned in profile in the doorway, staring at the typewriters as Chuck, Charise, Kami and Charles stared at him.

"To open what she opened. To send her back."

The storm hissed behind him and night-birds took to flight, cluttering and eclipsing the streetlights. In the shifting shadows Chuck could see the typewriters gleam. Some of the keys were worn away, certain letters erased by the stress of time while others seemed brand new. It was like a mosiac... a pattern.

"If that... is your wish..."

There was a scream from below. The four of them turned and looked to one another, each of them recognizing Gin's cry and the anguish that echoed in it.


And when they looked back to the doorway, the derelict man was gone.


 
Charles stared in shock, it was as if the man was never there....Impossible... Point to point transportation? Angels? It was then Charles remembered the scream. "Chuck!" Charles looked at the Older man, As much of a druggie he was, he wouldn't abandon a friend. He looked at the girls, "Stay together! See about the keys!" He then grabbed Chuck and Vanished down the stairs.​
 
Stunned by the appearance and sudden disappearance of the rain-soaked man in the doorway, Chuck does react initially as Charles begins to drag him down towards the stairs leading to the basement. But something seems to finally click back into place in his head as he notices where he's being led.
“Hey, fuck you man!” the junkie snarls, wrenching his arm out of the other man's grip and shoving him away, “No way I'm going down there, no fucking way!” The amused, almost lackadaisical expression that has been on his face since he arrived is gone now; the façade has been stripped back to reveal the ugly interior that was lurking beneath.

It's as if Charles is staring across at some sort of cornered animal, desperate and enraged by fear.

Chuck backs up the stairs slowly, keeping his gaze locked on his bespectacled cohort. Reaching the main room of the shop once again, he pulls his jacket closer around him and storms towards the doorway. “I'm out,” he informs Charise and Kami as he moves, stopping just before the doorway to look at them, “Fuck Ray, and fuck this place. You guys got any sense, then you'll come with too.” Without another word he reaches for the door handle.
 
Kami's eyes were fixed on the man that had suddenly appeared all drenched, he seemed pale and unreal and Kami noticed how he seemed so out of this world and inhuman. The words he spoke before his abrupt disappearance kept ringing in her head.

"Her time has ended."

"The answer is on the keys."

"To open what she opened. To send her back."

"If that... is your wish..."

It was right after that when she was broken from her trance from that scream that made her heart beat faster. 'Gin? could it be her?' Kami wondered and then the words 'Her time has ended' ringed again and she gasped but before she could say anything she saw as Charles led Chuck down and told the girls to stay put, Kami looked from Charis and then back at them.

It was only a minute later Kami heard Chuck protest and walk back up ready to leave the place as he warned them but if Kami had learned anything from the antiques she owned, she knew these stories were bitter and horrid. As much she could try to escape it would haunt her but more than just fear curiosity got the best of her. She was amazed at herself how curiosity and fear stuck together inside her.

"Go save yourselves both of you...I can't just leave Gin or Ray if he's any saner." Kami's words were soft making her look more like a perfect part of this nonsensical events. She gasped and she followed Charles way, "Charles i'll come with you." Kami paused and then slowly reached for his arm, clinging more to his shirt than his arm from fear, "...incase we get lost..since it's dark."
 
Charles felt Kami grasp his arm. He slowly walked with her back up the steps. Turning to Chuck who was bout to open the door. "The door wont open." Charles smiled. "At least to you Chuck. I didn't want to think this about you but your a low life cowardly BASTARD!" He sadly nodded his head after the outburst.... "Lets cut a deal. We need all the help we can get. Fine. Be a coward. Just stay to protect everyone. Call for help. The cops. If you stay I'll pay back whatever debt you owe. Don't Lie. All druggies have debts. Your probably the only one who knows how to fight... But if you leave us right now! I'll pay every gang, every homeless man, and every corrupt cop. To hunt you down...You can leave if, lets say a skinless monster attacks. But anything short of that you fight." He looked sadly at Chuck. Then to the girl not currently gripping his sleeve. "Charise. Leave if you want.But please try to figure out the puzzle." He then Looped his arm around Kami's like a gentleman and walked back down the stairs.
 
Charise thought she was somehow hallucinating. But since everyone else saw the man, too, she figured she wasn't. She understood Chuck's reaction, but that didn't mean she agreed with him. She send a small smile towards Charles. "I'll have a look at the keyes. But if you want me to be alone here, you'd better make sure nothing gets up those stairs okay? And as soon as you find Gin, drag her here so we can all leave together."

As Charles led the two of them downstairs Charise walked to the shelves to have a look at the typewriter keys. She kept glancing towards the stairs, not wanting to let it out of sight. So was in charge of solving some weird puzzle to ´send her back´, whatever that meant. She didn't really like the situation, but if the were going to save Gin, they'd need more people. Besides, Chuck would run away if left upstairs and Kami was obviously scared and needed someone to cling to. Though she was scared as well, she tried to reassure herself that the staircase was the only way to get up, and whatever scared Gin wouldn't get past Charles, Chuck and Kami. `Just ignore the stories you've read about hidden staircases and passways, and focus on the typewriters.`she tried to tell herself with little success. She sighed. This wasn't starting well.
 
Gin was going to throw up.

The blood. The smell. That thing...

"-I love her!"

The girl wretched but kept it down by clamping a pale hand over her mouth and nose. She backed away from the macabre couple, further into the hallway. Safety in the darkness. She had always known Ray was strange and lonely, and had felt pity for him. She'd done everything she could for her silent friend: thrown all her single friends, men and women, at him. None had stuck and now this.

Not even a mother could love that face. At least, not any mother from this world. She had her claws in Ray, somehow, and Gin didn't want to see her friend reduced to this, even if he was being a twat.

"Ye' blaggin' me 'ead, la'. She's a monsteh."

There was an inhuman sound from the skinless woman as she tore away from Ray's grip and scuttled, impossibly fast towards Gin. The girl didn't think, only kicked the abomination's bloody face and ran back to the stairs like Hell itself was chasing her.

It was.