cutscene-beach

Cutscene - The Beach

Moon­less cold windy night on beach, wind tur­bines in­land

The two vam­pires heard the steady “whoop, whoop” sound that meant they were close to the beach. An­oth­er fif­teen me­ters and they would be done with the stink­ing morass day­lighters called a wet­land. The marsh that ex­tend­ed along ocean side south of The Park.

“Ha, look­it. It’s so con­fused.” Clee­tus held up a twen­ty cen­time­ter long pale slug-­like thing. The beast­ie flopped back and forth. It’s rows of cir­cu­lar teeth seek­ing flesh to dig in­to.

“Gee, Clee­tus you found a leech. I can see the post­ing now ‘While slog­ging through a pu­trid, re­volt­ing swamp, vam­pire is stunned by table-­turn­ing leech.’”

“He’s just look­ing for din­ner like us.” said Clee­tus hold­ing the leech up and look­ing for it’s eye­s. “Sor­ry, lit­tle vam­pire guy. I ain’t got no blood in me. Maybe we’ll find us some lat­er.” With this Clee­tus slipped the wrig­gling blood­-­suck­er in­to the thigh car­go pock­et of his mili­tia fa­tigues.

“S­peak­ing of din­ner, I smell blood, warm blood, of the hu­man kind.” Clee­tus’s com­pan­ion said as he re­moved the haz­mat suit he used to keep the muck off his ex­pen­sive tai­lored cloth­s.

Clee­tus ran out in­to the sur­f, his idea of a bath. The cold salt-wa­ter washed away most of the mud and slime. He still reeked and would con­tin­ue to do so un­til he ‘did his laun­dry’ aka steal­ing the cloths of some suit­ably sized and re­cent­ly drained ‘donor’. He rushed out of the foamy wa­ter to­wards the spot No­name was ap­proach­ing. They ar­rived si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly.

Pulling a bit of sea­weed out of his col­lar Clee­tus spoke first. “Look­it, seafood snack. Huh, huh.”

“My seafood” replied No­name. Bend­ing over to in­spect ‘the catch’ Non­ame’s dark blue fe­do­ra sailed off in the gusty wind. Re­cent­ly de­posit­ed by the tide she was naked ex­cept for a steel ID bracelet around her right wrist. In her ear­ly twen­ties with head shaved so close it was hard to tell that the fuzz that cov­ered it was brown. Her olive skin was un­burnt and dis­played few signs of ex­po­sure. Stradling the un­con­scious fe­male his os­trich leather shoes fill­ing with sand No­name reached down to pull her neck up to a more con­ve­nient height. Her large dark lips part­ed and spit up a bit of Pa­cif­ic. Brush­ing sand and muck from her bare neck No­name no­ticed she was quite a bit more mus­cu­lar than most hu­mans her age and gen­der.

“Don’t wor­ry my lit­tle sushi, it will all be over soon.”

Clee­tus would have laughed at this but could man­age on­ly one thing at a time and was cur­rent­ly busy scan­ning the ocean swell­s. He had seen a mis­shaped head stick­ing out the waves just were they start­ed crest­ing. Er, maybe not, back to the show. He turned ‘round in time to catch No­name chang­ing in­to ‘the face’, mouth open wide, fangs cen­time­ters from pierc­ing that ten­der, shiv­er­ing neck.

Even be­fore her large eyes were ful­ly open she had be­gun to move her right ar­m, across the front of her body, el­bow tight at the side. Swing­ing hard, the back of her hand smashed in­to the face that was leer­ing over her. It had been an au­to­mat­ic re­sponse as was the rest of this com­bo. Her left fist, clenched tight bar­reled with the full force of her swing­ing body in­to Non­ame’s jaw knock­ing him half way around and near­ly to his knees. Con­tin­u­ing her spin, she lift­ed her right leg and plant­ed a cir­cle kick firm­ly in Non­ame’s side, pro­pel­ling him sev­er­al me­ters through the air to face plant in the sand.

“Je­sus,” he spurt­ed mouth half filled with sand. “I like to tan­gle with din­ner as much as the next vam­p, but let’s not be ridicu­lous.”

With­out re­al­ly think­ing about it she had end­ing up fac­ing the next threat.

“Uh” Clee­tus man­aged. The naked meal’s two brown eye­s, pupils ex­tra large in the dark­ness, fix­at­ed on him.

She stood, be­wil­dered, star­ing at the cam­ou­flaged sol­dier a few me­ters away. Shiv­er­ing from the cold and gen­er­all lack of cloths she looked down at her bare, sand caked body and won­dered “Where are my cloth­s?” Her clenched fist caused the mus­cles of her right fore­arm to bulge as she held it up. She was turn­ing over the ID tag to read it when a sharp pain forced her to throw back that wrist. The skin at the base of her hand sep­a­rat­ed and a smooth spike pro­trud­ed. It’s tip caught in the links of the bracelet and snapped it apart as the spike con­tin­ued its painfull ex­ten­sion. A scream erupt­ed from her lip­s. Not of pain, this was a bat­tle cry. She spun around and thrust out at No­name as he ran up be­hind her. The force of the im­pact gouged two troughs in the sand with her heel­s. The palm of her hand rest­ed over Non­ame’s un­beat­ing heart. Twen­ty-­five or so cen­time­ters of wood sheathed car­bon fiber stake lay buried in his chest. It’s fer­ro­ce­ram­ic tip had pierced his Kevlar un­der­shirt as eas­i­ly as it had part­ed his im­port­ed wool suit. As No­name turned to dust she looked over her shoul­der to again bring the next threat in view. But Clee­tus had seen enough of this shit and was busy run­ning very fast back to­wards the marsh and the big boss.

The warmth of com­bat fled her body. Her arm fall limply to her side and the stake slow­ly with­drew back in­to her fore­ar­m. Mut­ter­ing to her­self “Where am I” and look­ing around she saw on­ly tur­bines, beach and dark ocean. Shapes were out in the waves head­ing this way. Not un­der­stand­ing what had hap­pened to the man that as­sault­ed her and fear­ing what might be com­ing af­ter her from the ocean she took a step back al­most top­pling over. Shock and mild hy­pother­mia were tak­ing their tol­l. But slay­ers don’t give up, even ones who don’t know they’re slay­er­s. Hug­ging her­self for warmth she trudged to­wards lights and the “whoop, whoop” of a hun­dred tur­bines. A few min­utes lat­er she was in the Low­lands stum­bling up Or­te­ga.

The half-­dozen re­con spi­ders they had de­ployed in­formed them ex­act­ly who and what was or was not on, in, or above this lone­ly stretch of sand. Their re­breather­s, night vi­sion, ther­mal, and com­bat gear hung, pro­trud­ed and bulged all over. The skin-­suits they wore ad­just­ed re­flec­tiv­i­ty mak­ing them ex­treme­ly hard to spot. Ther­mal damp­en­ers made them nigh in­vis­i­ble to IR. Many of their tar­get­s, such as vam­pires, re­lied heav­i­ly on IR. But, this was­n’t a search and de­stroy mis­sion. This was cleanup, col­lect­ing the pieces left around from some­one else’s fuck­-up.

“Did the spi­ders get that? Tell me they did, R&D chews my ass when we don’t get them da­ta to play with­.”

“Record­ed and up­load­ed, Sir.” Replied the Sergeant af­ter check­ing her HUD.

“How ‘bout Delta sec­tion?” Con­tin­ued her su­pe­ri­or.

“They’ve lo­cat­ed both the re-en­try cap­sule and it’s hatch. Just wait­ing for Moth­er to pick them up­.”

“Hot damn this team is sharp. In­form them to stand-by, we’ll be back out in ten.”

“We’re not fol­low­ing… it, Sir?”

“Not our prob­lem Sergean­t. Some oth­er re­source will han­dle it. If there’s even a need.”

“How do you mean, Sir?”

“Ru­mors that they have built in fail­safes. Now quit ask­ing ques­tions be­fore you learn more than you want to know.” Replied the Lt. end­ing all dis­cus­sion.

He picked up the bro­ken ID bracelet and metic­u­lous­ly scanned the sand with an ar­ray of de­tec­tion equip­ment un­til sat­is­fied that not a sin­gle frag­ment re­mained. It, un­like any thing he wore or car­ried, was stamped “Prop­er­ty of Sony Cor­p”. It con­tin­ued “Or­bital R&D Fa­cil­i­ty” and be­low that “S­tar­sider - v8.37.2”. Then again no one had ex­pect­ed the par­tic­u­lar piece of tech this had iden­ti­fied to ev­er be ‘in the wild’ so to speak.

“Sergeant check your seals and call in the spi­der­s, we’ve got a sub to catch.”

“Yes, Sir.”

---

Epi­log -

Gun­der­son sits on beach as the sun­light fades. Great sun­set.

She holds his hand and says its beau­ti­ful­l. Her hand be­comes soft and wet she with­draws it and Gun­der­son does­n’t com­plain. Wet gur­gles be­side him but he can’t turn to look. Tears cas­cade down his cheeks to the sand and are quick­ly ab­sorbed. When the last bit of firey red is ban­ished by pur­ple twil­light he fi­nal­ly turns and sees all that re­mains of her. Two sets of fer­ro-al­loy sup­port strut­s, lin­er ac­tu­a­tors, and wood sheathed car­bon fiber stakes. Wip­ing the last tears from his face he grabs the two me­chan­ic­s. Tak­ing a few steps to­wards the surf he hurls them in­to the ocean. Los­ing sight of them in the moon­less twil­light. But he hears them plop one af­ter the oth­er in­to the churn­ing wa­ter.

Turn­ing around, Gun­der­son­’s hy­drolic pis­tion legs pump hard, pro­pel­ling him off the beach and back to­wards the hill­s. He nev­er no­ticed the spi­ders that had been watch­ing, record­ing since they ar­rived. The Sergeant re­trieves each of the stake weapons while the Lt. and two sol­diers from Delta sec­tion scoop and bag all the sand Star­sider had melt­ed in­to.