River Of Horrors - A Schlattbur Story

PART 5 - BREAKING

RIVER OF HORRORS

PART 5

───── ❝ BREAKING ❞ ─────

Sheer shock with a mixture of horror colours Tommy and Ty's ashen faces as they open the door. Standing before them is Schlatt and Connor, drenched in sweat and blood.

There's a giant graze covering an entire half of Connor's face, smeared with dried up blood. There's also a massive bruise on his forehead, and a thin, dry trickle of blood is stained from underneath his nostrils to his upper lip.

Schlatt on the other hand, looks a lot worse. Barely just able to stand, he has an arm around Connor's shoulder for support. His eyes are a bloodshot red, and his entire neck is caked in blood. Thin flaps of his skin peel from his neck like tattered wallpaper; his entire chest is damp with blood, and his hands are a soaking red. The two look like they're murderers who just came out of a crime scene.

"Oh my god, holy shit!!" Tommy yells out, stifling back a scream with his hand. "Schlatt! Connor! Holy shit, holy shit, are you guys okay?!"

Ty retaliates back, mortification written in bold across his face as he screams. Tears prickling the corners of his eyes, he stammers out. "Oh god! I—I'll go get the m—med kit— oh my fucking God!!"

He jolts around and runs to the medic room, which was downstairs. Wilbur, who heard Ty's shriek from the other side of the base, sprints down the hallway before halting to a stop as he sees the bloodied messes of Schlatt and Connor walk through the door. Freezing in his tracks, his gaze fixates onto the ram man's.

The man stares back at him, his tired eyelids drooping over half of his glassy eyes. There's a flash of emptiness in his hollow pupils.

An inarticulate expression falls upon Wilbur — his glazed-over eyes bulging out of his sockets, baffled at the sight of the boys condition. His breath hitching, a delicate, intermittent movement twitches on one half of his face. He takes a slow step forward, and another step, and then he breaks into another sprint toward Schlatt. Raising his hand, he smacks him hard across the face.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" he shrieks in his face, saliva spraying out his mouth like a fountain. "Going out there completely unarmed with absolutely no idea of the danger you were facing against?!"

Still holding onto Connor, Schlatt stumbles back at the hit. He brings a frail hand to his cheek, rubbing it to ease the pain. He doesn't say anything.

Gaping, Connor exclaims, "Wilbur—!"

"There are ravenous, cannibalistic monsters roaming around out there! And you waste your fucking time mucking around like little children and playing with your fucking phone instead of being careful! Because of your childish behaviour you two almost got fucking killed!!"

He leans closer into Schlatt's face, making sure the man hears every single word coming out his mouth clearer than day. For the shit he pulled on him today, he's not going to let him go the rest of the night without giving him the fucking earful he deserves.
Ever since the face-call cut out on him earlier today, Wilbur's insides had been gnawing at him relentlessly — the rising anxiety of the very likely possibility Schlatt and Connor won't return home building up in him. He was terrified for their life. While they might have returned, they sure as hell didn't come back in one piece.

"What the fuck was going through your head when you pulled out your phone and started face timing us while being chased by cannibals?! Huh? What, you thought you were being fucking funny? Well you weren't, you fucking—!"