Chapter 68: Death Stranding (1/2)

From Friday the 13th to Candyman, Ryan had seen all the slasher movies.

He had acted in a few too, either as the relentless terminator during his brief Punisher phase, or as the lonely target pursued by malevolent Psychos. He still looked back fondly on that run where he escaped the Centipede with only his boxers on. Good times.

So the current situation was nothing extraordinary. Night Terror was just Freddy Krueger, except he could attack people while they were awake. Pluto was Death from Final Destination. The Vamp was a trap; literal death by sex. As for Sparrow… she didn’t fit any box.

Perhaps she would be the final girl? The assassin was a bit old for the role, but Ryan was nothing if not open-minded.

Anyway, he and Atom Cat had managed to escape through the woods, eventually moving far enough that Sparrow could no longer target them with lasers. The duo followed a hiking path down a wooded valley, surrounded by lush green ferns, verdant trees, orchids, and cascading water. Ryan recognized the area as the Valle Delle Ferriere, a natural reserve pre-war.

Unfortunately, the courier sensed Pluto’s power active on his person. His heartbeat raced unnaturally, his fingers twitched with tension, and he almost tripped on a rock at one point. They had put distance between the Augusti Underboss and themselves, but she wouldn’t relent.

“If we continue south, we should reach the rendezvous point with Shortie.” Ryan checked his phone, trying to contact the Soviet Supreme without avail. “Something is jamming my cell phone.”

“Probably Vulcan’s tech,” Atom Cat said. “Cut your phone off, they might be able to track it down.”

Good point, and it would spare Ryan more messages from Lucky Girl. “How far do you think Night Pajama’s range extends?”

“I don’t know,” Atom Cat admitted, checking Ryan’s neck. Red marks marred his skin where the Bloodstream hallucination had choked him. “Are you okay? I admit I was quite scared when I saw you freak out like a man possessed.”

Aww, he cared! Though after putting Ryan through such a scare, Night Pajama would suffer the Luigi treatment. “Continue south, I will go east.”

“You want us to split?”

That was a big no-no in slasher movies, but the courier was no helpless teenager. “Cruella can only target one person at once, and she’s focusing on me. I will lead her into a trap. If you escape, we’ve won.”

Also, Ryan couldn’t risk having the Killer Seven track them to the rendezvous point. Risking his own life was one thing, endangering Len’s was another.

Felix immediately protested, “I’m not leaving you to die, Ryan.”

“Trust me, Kitten,” the courier said, while grabbing a revolver in each hand. He would have taken a dose of Rampage too, if he didn’t worry Pluto’s power might worsen the side-effects. “I do better without teams.”

“But—”

“Do I have to shoot you too?”

The Kitten finally understood it was time to let the adults do their thing. “Okay,” Felix said, though he clearly didn’t like it. “Okay, I will trust you. But don’t you dare die for me.”

“God forbid, your sister would nag me in the afterlife if I did. Now go.”

With one last glance, Atom Kitten followed the hiking trail south, while the courier moved east.

Ryan strolled through the woods, even as he sensed Pluto’s invisible pressure growing stronger. He passed before the mossy ruins of houses and mills, and eventually followed a path following a tumbling river. He soon reached a wide area, with woods on one side, and a small waterfall on the other. A river coursed through a path of whetstone, which allowed one to step from one side to the other.

Leaves bristled as shadows approached. Ryan raised his guns, as multiple figures seemed to surround him; with the darkness, he couldn’t see clearly.

And yet… as a sweet, delicious perfume filled the air, the courier couldn’t help but relax. The tension in his body seemed to vanish, as an invisible voice told him to relax.

Slowly, a figure emerged from the bushes; she was the most beautiful sight the courier had seen in his entire life, in all his runs combined. A gorgeous redhead with a curvaceous body, and perfect skin; even her few freckles only enhanced her appeal. Her lips were red as blood, her eyes shining emeralds. Her red jacket seemed like a forbidden frontier, the promise of untold pleasure to whoever could get past it.

When he saw her, Ryan immediately wanted to drop everything, slam her against a tree, and give her the Full Romano Special.

“Hey,” the Vamp said with a warm, lovely smile, revealing her empty hands. Even her voice aroused the courier. “It’s okay. You’re safe. My poor boy, you must have been so scared, all alone in the woods.”

“Are you an angel?” By now, Ryan’s pop culture-infested subconscious was in full control of his body. “They're the most beautiful creatures in the universe.”

“I can be your angel if you want,” the redhead said, putting a hand on her jacket’s zipper. “Just throw your weapons away, and… I’ll show you heaven.”

Who was Jasmine again? This was the perfect waifu. The romance endgame, the true ending.

But as Ryan was about to turn this horror movie into a porno, he realized one problem with this scenario.

“Gingers can’t go to heaven,” he said, “they don’t have souls.”

“What?”

And then he shot her.

The bullet impacted the killer’s chest and tossed her back against a tree, but didn’t shed blood. Oh, come on, what kind of supervillain wore a bulletproof vest nowadays? Ryan knew he should have aimed for the head!

“You shot me!” Vamp protested in shock. “You shot me!”

“Begone, demon!” Ryan raised his guns and fired at will like a maniac. “I know your game, succubus! Each of your freckles is a soul you stole!”

Vamp looked at Ryan as if he were mad, before fleeing behind a tree to avoid getting shot. Damn, this always happened when he tried to blow off stress! “Richie, get your ass over here!” she shouted. “How can you resist my pheromones, asshole?”

“Well, when you have taken as many mind-altering substances as I did, eventually you build a tolerance,” Ryan replied, as he reloaded his guns. “Frankly, I’ve tried much stronger aphrodisiacs than your pheromones. You wouldn’t believe half the things I’ve done.”

“No matter,” the ginger devil replied from behind her cover, “a kiss and your vitals will fail you.”

As she said that, all too familiar inhuman faces emerged from the woods to surround Ryan from all sides. “Dear guest.” Five vicious clowns, each armed with napkins and silver cutlery. “The Monte-Carlo is currently closed!”

“Bring it, Pennywise,” Ryan replied, shooting the closest one as it collapsed into a white substance. These illusions could harm him like the real ones, but they died like the originals too. They only had as much power as his mind gave them.

As he engaged the clowns, Vamp left her hiding spot and moved around bushes like a stalking lion, her hands now letting out some kind of colored smoke. Lethal pheromones, most probably.

Ryan briefly stopped time, the Monaco illusions vanishing instantly. However, unlike Bloodstream’s ghost before, when time resumed, the clowns returned to life.

“Is that the best you’ve got, Pajamas?” he taunted Night Terror, as he slaughtered his way through the clowns. “I killed thousands of them! I even ate one!”

Then, as he was surrounded by darkness and dead clowns, a new smell filled the air. One that filled him with anxiety and dread. The stench of death and disease and—

“Riri.”

Ryan turned around, and faced her.

She stood on the whetstone near the waterfall, wearing clothes drenched in blood.

“Shortie?” Ryan asked, though intellectually, he knew this was all in his head.

Len opened her mouth, only to vomit blood. She cried crimson tears while letting out an ear-piercing shriek, and charged at the courier with a knife raised.

Ryan was so startled by the sight, that the illusion had closed the gap before he could aim. She used one arm to push him against a tree, and the other to try and stab him with a knife. The courier had to drop one of his guns to catch her hand and keep the blade away; he then attempted to aim with his remaining gun, even as his attacker started shocking him...

“You never left Monaco.” The illusion’s voice didn’t belong to Len, but Ryan himself. “You’re still in that bed, and this is all a dying dream.”

That was probably the worst thing someone could have said to the time-traveler, and it made him lose focus for an instant. Night Terror’s blade instantly hit Ryan’s thigh, though the courier managed to deviate the attack away from his vitals.

Unfortunately, while the scary special effect failure kept him pinned to a tree, Vamp emerged from her hiding spot. “You should have taken the easy way out, jackass,” she told Ryan as her pheromone-charged hand moved towards his neck. “At least I would have fucked you first.”

“Maybe next time,” Ryan replied with a scowl of pain, before freezing time.

He expected the illusion to vanish, but instead, it merely transformed. From a nightmarish, twisted version of Len, to a masked man in a full black suit.

“There you are.”

Ryan pushed the paralyzed Night Terror away, and shot him twice in the head.

When time resumed, the Blue Genome’s corpse crashed against a surprised Vamp and caused her to trip on the whetstones, nearly falling into the waterfall nearby. One hand on his thigh wound, Ryan raised his gun at her.

“Wait,” the Vamp pleaded while raising her hands in surrender, her scent filling Ryan with a mix of desire and regret. “Don’t kill me! I can make it worth your while!”

Yes, she would be his. His mind, his body screamed it at him. She would do everything Ryan wanted; he just had to drop his gun, and take her now. “What’s your name?” the courier asked, pointing his gun at Night Terror’s remains. “His and yours? For later.”

“Richard Pinkman, and Karen Ricci!” She forced herself to smile. “Yes, lower that gun, and I will kiss your wound—”

Ryan shot the ginger menace in the head before she could tempt him further.

“No sex before marriage,” he quipped, as the waters dragged the assassins’ bodies down the waterfall. “My purity is my shield!”

Afterward, Ryan let out a sigh of pain, Night Terror’s knife still embedded in his flesh. He couldn’t remove it without risking bleeding out, even with his enhanced physiology. At least, not until he found a safe spot.

However, he didn’t have time for this. The courier heard an explosion in the distance, south of his location. It seemed Atom Cat was fighting for his life too, in spite of the time-traveler’s best efforts.

Ryan could barely hear himself think, as his heartbeat rose in intensity. His heart felt as if it would burst in his chest, and his vision blurred at the edge.

“I’m impressed.”

Pluto.