The Beast Inside, Issue #006

Issue #006 – – – – – controlled by Frank Devocht – – – – – Credits 9

Wild Thing took a step backwards as the six glowing forms solidifed.  Each of them was small, child-sized, clearly made out of plastic.  Their painted eyes stared maniacally at the heroes, with the occasional blank actioned by a shutter-like piece of plastic that clicked down and up, down and up.

Puppets.  Big puppets.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Nelson snarled and came at them.  The girder was a big powerful weapon, but these were small agile targets.  As he approached they scattered in all directions, running on tiny legs, spreading out around the warehouse.

“Don’t let them surround us,” Nelson cried.
“On it!” Wild Thing agreed, somersaulting across the room to kick one of the puppets in its hand-carved face.  It skittered across the floor and leapt straight back to its feet.  “Hey!”  Wild Thing complained.  “You could at least act like you felt that.”
The puppet came at him, snapping its nasty little jaws so that the rows of sharpened teeth clicked together, over and again.
“You’re a freaky little fella,” Wild Thing said, snatching the puppet up by its arms and holding it in front of him, restraining those gnashing teeth just inches from his chest.  With a fast rip, he tore its arms off.  The tiny puppet shrieked and flopped to the floor, rolling and thrashing frantically.  But before Wild Thing could stomp on it he heard a movement to the rear.  “Oh crap.  There’s one of you behind me, isn’t there?”

Beast Nelson just kept spinning the girder.  Every time one of the vicious little toys rushed at him, the hero brought the metal length around at such a speed that it was forced to scamper back.  The problem was, there were now three of them trying to reach him.  They seemed to be working together, timing their rushes to attempt to get inside his guard.  He wasn’t able to hit them but sooner or later he was sure one of them would get to him.  He didn’t fancy losing chunks of his anatomy to those razor-sharp incisors.
“Stand still a minute,” He instructed the puppets.  “Just long enough for me to get a clean swing.”  The puppets didn’t seem anxious to humour him and as he brought the girder around for another circle one charged under its arc and came flying at his chest.  With only a split second to spare, Beast Nelson let go of the girder which went spinning across the warehouse and instead grabbed the incoming toy by the head.  Holding its plastic skull in one huge hand he flexed his grip and crushed it.
“One down,” He said, “A couple more to go.”

Wild Thing whirled on the spot and executed a rather smooth spinning back kick.  It had been  a gamble, but it paid off.  Catching the incoming puppet across the jaw it sent the toy tumbling through the air.  The hero didn’t wait to see if it got back up.  Instead he spun back to the front again where the first puppet he had engaged was rising.  He stomped on its head.  Hard.  The splintering crunch suggested it wasn’t rejoining the fight any time soon.
“How you doing?” Wild Thing called across to Nelson.  He was feeling good.  Things were going a lot better as a duo than they had when he’d tried to fight Death, Esquire’s minions on his own.  “Only one?  I’m winning by a clear point,” he called to his giant-sized ally.
“Shut up and watch out,” Nelson shouted back.  Just in time as the puppet he’d kicked away leapt back into action and latched onto his thigh, sinking its sharp teeth into the fleshy meat there.  Wild Thing bit back a scream and began pounding at the creature.  The more he hit it, the harder it bit.

The two puppets approached Beast Nelson from either side.  It was a very coordinated move, aimed to split his attention now that he didn’t have his girder to defend him.   The more Nelson thought about it the more it seemed a little too coordinated.  These were puppets, after all.  Not soldiers.   Other than their tactical actions they showed no signs of intelligence, communication or creativity.  An idea began to form in the heroes mind.  Abruptly, he broke left, charging past Wild Thing to where his girder had landed.  As he passed he tored the puppet from the younger hero’s leg.  Wild Thing shrieked as a large piece of flesh and muscle came with it, but at least the monster was off of him.  Nelson hurled it at the wall.

The big hero just had time to snatch up the metal beam before the puppets were on him again.  But this time he ignored them.  He felt one latch onto his arm and another onto his ankle.  Their teeth, supernaturally sharp, began to penetrate even his immensely tough skin, but Beast Nelson knew he had a minute or two before it got serious.  He used it to stalk along the side of the warehouse swinging the girder in mid-air, ignoring the puppets that he was dragging along with him.  The third toy, which had been biting Wild Thing, jumped up and bit onto his neck.  Nelson ignored it.

“What the hell are you doing?” Wild Thing called, wondering if the big guy had gone crazy.
Nelson ignored him, still walking along the edges of the warehouse swinging that massive metal weapon in giant threatening arcs before him.  As he neared the far end there was a flash of light and purple smoke and something appeared just ahead of Beast Nelson.  That something was a skeleton, in a dapper black suit, carrying a scythe.  As it appeared, the puppets disappeared.  “That’s what I thought,” Nelson said.
“What the Hell?  Death, Esquire?  Here?  How did you know?” Wild Thing ran across the warehouse to join his partner facing down with the undead thing.
“They weren’t being teleported in.  They weren’t even being summoned.  These things aren’t what they seem.”
“I don’t understand,” Wild Thing gaped.
“They are energy constructs.  Very extravagant, colouful ones.  But energy constructs just the same.  This guy isn’t some Grim Reaper from the netherworld.  He’s an Abnormal dressed in his own energy signature.”
Death, Esquire laughed.  “Well deducted,” he sneered.  “Though it will do you no good.  My Darklight Creatures can harm you just as real enemies would.  They are no less real for their origins.”
“But why?” Wild Thing asked.  “What’d I ever do to you?”

Death, Esquire did not reply.  Instead he raised his scythe and let a creepy green glow spread from it.  As the glow grew he began to speak in a low, rasping, deeply unpleasant voice and with each word a strange, glowing army of bizarre creatures began to form around them..  “I bring with me creatures from beyond life, so that each of you may be taken into the long night and your souls suffer…”

“I don’t think so,” Beast Nelson interrupted.

The hero brought the girder down with all his strength and with a huge, deafening, colossal blow – flattened Death, Esquire into the ground.  The green light flickered out.  The spectral army vanished.  All that remained was a skinny black teenager in a tatty cloak.

“You talk too much,” the Hero told the fallen villain.