Foundered

Yarachmiel V: The Grand Mausoleum

Through the starlit night Yara and Jasper drove their jeep, Yara on the wheel and Jasper beside him fuming with blood-choked rage. Looking into the sky, they looked for gargoyles.

"Jasper, calm down, we'll save him, I promise you," Yara reassured him.

"We have to, can't believe the first person I ever fell in love with would be taken by those fuckers. I'll kill every last one of them, hunt them down, and destroy them."

"That we will," said Yara. "How far are they?"

"Not very," Jasper replied, "we just need to follow the route, I've seen them roost on a hill nearby, that's where they're probably taking him."

"Why would they take him to their roost?" Yara wondered, "I mean... had they been living creatures, it would've made sense for them to do that to feed their young ones, but they're zombies."

"I don't know," said Jasper, "but this we can be certain of: they don't plan anything good of him."

Yara was scared of Jasper, he hadn't seen a face like this before, at least not on Jasper's face. Even though he wore a helmet which concealed his dread visage, Yara could feel it by its very sensation: he was vexed, and he should've been. But this was just so unlike him: the guy who would joke and pun before heading to battle.

"You sure loved him very much," said Yara, "I mean – I can say if from your face."

"I can't believe the first guy I asked out got kidnapped like that," said Jasper, "I think I'm cursed, I shouldn't ever ask anyone out again."

"Hey, don't think that," Yara tried to cheer him up, "you're gonna be his knight in shining armor, in a literal sense. Rescue him and then carry him off to bed."

"Only if we find him in one piece," he said, clutching his shotgun in his arms. "Prepare yourself: we're there."

As the car stopped, they saw before them ancestral pillars, as old and grey as time itself. The ancient pillars carved into the shapes of dragons and demons, bend into an archway – an archway that led up the hill and up onto a plateau, where the gargoyles nestled.

Wasting not a moment more, Jasper rushed into the fray, yelling like a maddened lion, his eyes gleaming like sapphires, his footsteps falling on the soft loam like a hammer on hot iron. Yara trailed behind, holding a CQBR close to his face.

Two gargoyles attacked Jasper, but his shotgun silenced them. Two more approached near, but Yara shot them down. Two ghouls charged, but Jasper crushed one's skull with his axe-stock, and his dirk in the other's brain.

"Help!" he heard a call from Zac, sending him into a rage like never before.

And so passed Jasper, charging like a wave through a sandbank, carving his path out of fire and flesh, encircling all who came in his path in a crushing wave, until he reached Zac, his armor torn but body unharmed.

"Zac!" yelled Jasper, "are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think so," Zac replied, horrified and in fright.

"Don't worry," said Jasper, helping him up, "we're gonna take you back home."

Yara nodded, they had been out for a little too long, now it was time to return. Or was it?

For a moment Yara thought he caught something in the corner of his eye, and so he did.

Looking down the precipice, Yara saw something which truly horrified him. He looked at it and was afraid – tens of thousands of zombies appeared out of the dell, blocking both exits from the roost. Oh no, it was a trap, he thought, pretty much proven correct.