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Chapter XX: Omega
Eastern State Penitentiary was a cold, desolate wasteland of slaughter and unholy destruction.
These were its good points. As Jack stepped foot into the main entry courtyard of the prison, he suddenly got a bad feeling. A shiver up his spine, like a brief taste of the horrors to come. There was just something...wrong with the area. It wasn’t something his normal five senses could detect, but more like something you just...knew. Something that was so painfully obvious you didn’t have to see or hear or smell it. Something so awful it wormed its way into your skull, your mind, and forced you to realized its terrible presence. As Jack began moving towards the main entrance, he had an odd feeling of end.
As if everything he had done so far was all building up to this point, as if everything was coming to an end. Jack wondered what that end was. His life, or everything else’s. Jack felt many things permeating off of the environment as he approached the main entrance. Hate. Lust. Anger. Fear. Disgust. Greed. Just to name a few. A prison was one of the worst places on the face of the planet and would be the absolutely perfect place to house a horrible abomination unto mankind. Whatever it was, it was in there. As he pushed through the front doors and came into the entrance lobby, Jack suddenly felt different. An entirely new feeling came over him slowly but surely, like an infection spreading through his mind and body. He felt...driven, motivated beyond sanity. And he knew exactly where to go.
Somehow, it was there; in his mind like a splinter. Driving him mad. He knew exactly where the thing was. Jack felt like an unstoppable force, like nothing on Earth, Heaven or Hell could halt his progress towards an unspeakable oblivion that was awaiting him in a cold darkness. There was no turning back now. Looking over, he spotted Jenny; she was staring at him. And somehow, he knew she felt the exact same way. Her eyes were alight with an inner fire, burning eternally. They both nodded to one another exactly the same time in exactly the same way. They turned and set off into the prison. Green and Jackson followed wordlessly, Jack determined by that their step, they did not feel the same way.
They moved through the entrance lobby into a long corridor with a number of doors along either side. Jack ignored them all. He wanted the basement. The bottom. The core of hate and suffering. That’s where it was, whatever it was. Jack held his Grease Gun, a tool, an implement of chaos and destruction meant to help him get closer to his goal. Jack felt that he could do anything, anything at all, to get to the destruction force wrought my man and put an end to it. He pushed through a doorway at the end of the corridor and progressed on in silence. The next few moments were almost a blur.
After progressing through many broken doorways, guard stations and corridors; Jack and the others arrived outside in the prison workyard. The place was abandoned, a barren location of godforsaken horror. Bodies littered the dirt and blood was splashed thickly onto the walls, a few fires burned brilliantly in the yard. Most of the fences had been torn down. Jack spotted another entrance on another wall across the courtyard from him and knew this was his next destination. However, before he made it three steps, the entire yard erupted into chaos. The ground began to rumble and Jack raised his weapon.
About two meters in front of him a great beast exploded from the ground, however, it was not a Marksman. This time it was a thin creature, elongated like a giant worm with barbed chains that came off of its body. On its head were a pair of goggles that glowed with a hellish inner light. Instantly Jack recognized this as the Burrower that the late Jacobson had explained to him. Jack blew the creature away, spraying its blood onto the ground and causing it to collapse with a soft thud. He looked around as he spotted three more trails heading directly his way, dirt was displaced as the creatures burrowed their way towards his location. Jack readied his weapon. Suddenly, it was as if every monster in Baltimore was there.
Almost everything that Jack had witnessed thus far exploded into the courtyard. Slayers flew over the walls and buildings, Marksmen and Burrowers sprouted from the ground. Nearby doors burst open to admit Maulers and Suppressors and Arsonists. Mainliners crawled up through the pools of rainwater and blood. Jack realized that this was not going to be an easy battle. Immediately everyone opened up. Jack tossed all the grenades he had accumulated through his journey into the crowd, blowing great, bloody holes in their masses. Limbs and heads and shredded remains were sent flying everywhere, some partially on fire. Jack opened up, blasting away a pack of Gorgers that were making their way rapidly towards him. He reloaded as quickly as he could, burning through far too many rounds of his Grease Gun. The other three were doing the best they could, Jack realized there were too many enemies.
Abandoning his weapon, Jack looked around desperately. Then he spotted it. A holy divine miracle in the stark oblivion that surrounded him. A light in the darkness. Someone had been smart enough to set up a turret mounted machine gun, a massive no doubt fifty caliber weapon. He ran over to it, hopping over the sandbags that had been placed around it and grabbed the controls. He cocked the weapon.
“Step aside, Butch.” He murmured, and then opened fire. Squeezing the trigger brought an instantly response, the weapon spoke. It thrummed in his firm grasp and spewed a deadly, dazzling barrage of red hot lead. The monsters shrieked and blew apart under the insanely powerful array of flying metal. Jack found himself laughing wildly as he swung the weapon in great, wide arcs; spraying the horde of creatures. First a few fell, then a dozen, then two dozen. Monsters of all shape and size exploded and were torn to shreds. Dozens of massive rounds were being eaten up by the huge belt-fed weapon, hundreds of spent shell casings carpeted the interior of the sandbag constructed shelter. It was a slaughter.
When the smoke cleared and the weapon ran out of ammo, Jack slowly let go of the handholds. He let out his breath in a long, shuddering sigh. Almost ninety percent of the beasts had been killed. The others were taking care of killing the few creatures that remained, most of them injured or dying. As Jack approached them, he noticed that there were only two figures standing amidst the chaos. Jenny and Green stood, surrounded by the dead, reloading their weapons.
“Where’s Jackson?” Jack asked.
“He didn’t make it. Got hit with a few Mainliner needles and then a Slayer chopped his damned head off.” Green replied solemnly. Jack sighed, another one dead. Far too many people around him were dying. He wondered who was next. But there was no time for that. The yard was clear, he snatched up a pair of weapons. One was a shotgun and another was something he hadn’t seen before in the streets of Baltimore but recognized it immediately. A rocket propelled grenade launcher, series seven. He also managed to find an extra pair of rockets, pocketing this all, he progressed on.
The others followed silently. They left the yard, plunging back into the darkness of the prison. After that it was moving from corridor to corridor, down one dark passageway and up another. They opened up gated doorways, climbed through broken windows. The going was tough, but not impossible. They went down every single stairwell leading down that they could find, it was strange; but Jack knew exactly where he was going. As he progressed into the darkest pits of despair, he wondered just how big this prison was. No one spoke as they walked, and any monsters they ran into were dealt with quickly and efficiently. Jack felt that he was becoming a professional monster killer, maybe he was getting too cocky.
Jack had almost entered a daze, working entirely on automatic. He felt a link with Jenny, and it was growing stronger. Their movements seemed very precise, in tune with one another. Before he knew it, they had reached another area. It was very dark and there was a faint chill upon the air. They had come into a large room, in the center was another, smaller room with various windows. All along the exterior of the larger room were doors. Jack recognized the area.
“Isolation chambers.” Jenny spoke what Jack was thinking. All of the doors were shut and the place seemed almost entirely untouched by the fighting, save for a large hole over to the right of the room. It was in the ground and seemed out of place, immediately Jack knew that that was where he had to go. He set off towards the hole, and then all the lights went out at once.
“Oh shit.” Green whispered. Jack raised his RPG launcher in preparation, wondering what new horror awaited them this time. Their trio of flashlights shot pale beams of light that barely pushed back the darkness at all. There was the sound of around a dozen doors all opening at once. Jack’s finger tightened around the trigger. Out of one of the isolation cells came something altogether new and terrible. It resembled a giant slug almost and crackled with electricity. It was roughly human in form, only its legs were broken and almost boneless. It carried itself along on metallic crutches with its arms. It spotted the group and began grunting, almost heaving. Its chest suddenly opened up and a wave of glowing green giant cockroaches exploded out and began scurrying towards them. Jack didn’t give it a chance.
He squeezed the firing pin and the rocket propelled grenade shrieked through the air. It connected directly with the creature, which Jack immediately named in his head; Isolationist. The creature exploded into a mass of flame and burning, bloody chunks. All of the giant roaches were consumed in the fireball. Before Jack could even let out a breath of relief, more of them began crawling out of the isolation chambers. Jack cursed, he quickly reloaded the launcher and blasted off another one; blowing away two more of the creatures. Jenny and Green opened fire with their assorted weapons as Jack blew away another trio with his final rocket. He cursed and abandoned the launcher.
“Go!” Green shouted suddenly, intermittedly blasting between a sawn off and a Grease Gun.
“What?” Jack replied, he demolished the head of a nearby Isolationist with his ten gauge and cocked it.
“Get out of here! You seem to know where you’re going, Jack! Take Jenny and go! I’ll hold them off! Kill whatever it is!” Green screamed, he pulled the pin of a fragmentation grenade with his teeth and tossed it into the crowd of creatures ahead of them. It blew open a wide, jagged, bloody hole in their ranks. Jack knew there were no other options, he grabbed Jenny and ran towards the hole in the ground. They fired along the way, opening up a path amongst the ever growing number of Isolations. Jack and Jenny killed as many as they could before they plunged into the hole. The pair fell into darkness and hit ground a second or so later. The force of the impact drove the breath from Jack’s lungs.
He immediately sat up, weapon at ready; but nothing had followed them. He quickly rose to his feet and helped Jenny regain her composure. They found themselves in a long corridor, Jack wondered if it was part of the original architecture of the prison. They began jogging down the passageway, which seemed to be lit by some sort of natural luminosity, an ambient light. They had made it about ten meters when Jack heard a loud scream and somehow he knew that Green was dead. He felt a pang of regret and depression, everyone he had met so far on this journey was dead except for Jenny. He wondered if that meant something and was getting the growing feeling that yes, it did mean something.
There was a large metallic door at the end of the hallway, which was impossibly long. The door seemed too big, too large; almost more than reality could contain. It almost was as if heat waves were coming off of the door, giving it a surrealistic look. Jack and Jenny slowed as they approached it, coming up to stand just a foot in front of it.
“Um...” Jack stated, breaking the silence.
“Now what?” Jenny completed his sentence.
“I’m not sure, maybe we just...knock.” Jack stated. After a moment, he slowly reached forward. He touched the metal with the tip of his finger, ready to pull it back immediately; but the metal was only lukewarm. He knocked three times. Surprisingly, the door slowly began to creak open. Beyond the door was a very simple room with a spotlight hovering about three meters off the ground, pointing directly downwards. Standing in the spotlight was one man. He was tall and fit, almost buff. His flesh was very pale and he was wearing a pitch black impeccable cut suit that looked extremely expensive. He wore a bowler hat that was tipped slightly forward on his head. In his hands he held an expensive looking cane, but didn’t look like he needed it at all.
“Hello Jack Mason, Jennifer Collins. It’s so good to finally meet you.” His voice was deep and very intelligent sounding, he spoke quite precisely.
“Who are you?” Jack asked, raising his shotgun. The man smiled.
“I have no name. And your weapon is quite useless Mr. Mason. I’ve become far too powerful for that. Oh, maybe a few hundred years ago it might have done something...but no longer. This body that you see is my current form, my modern rouse.” His voice seemed cheery, almost pleasant; he had a smile on his face.
“Why are you here? What are you?” Jack demanded, slowly lowering his weapon. He somehow had the feeling that this man, this...thing was telling the truth.
“I represent all of humanity’s deepest, darkest emotions. All of the negative sides of humanity. Hate, greed, avarice, lust, vengeance, mistrust, envy, sloth...just to name a few. For thousands of years I’ve slowly been forming. Your collective awful emotions created me, I’m not too sure when exactly. But I’ve been roaming the Earth for a very long time now. Every now and then I manifest and cause much trouble. You might know me as Hitler, as Ghengis Khan...a few other names throughout history. Even Vlad the Impaler. Jack the Ripper. I rise up every now and then to cause mass chaos and wreak destruction onto my creators. But eventually it loses its fun and I fade back into the background. Over the past hundred or so years I’ve grown incredibly in power, humans are hating each other more than ever.
“It’s astounding. I’ve been roaming American for decades now, in the early sixties I began toying with the ideas of monsters. All of your Hollywood or whatever it is you call it began to get me thinking. So I created some here and there, nothing too big. And then...I found him. Torque they called him, a sickeningly delightful little horror. He had one of the worst lives I’ve ever encountered in modern day America. Imagine how delighted I was when I discovered where he was going. Carnate Island. That place was positively riddled with a horrible history. It was there I began my new biggest threat. My creations exploded into existence. I guided Torque along here and there under the guise of one Doctor Killjoy. I’ve done it again here too, in Baltimore when he escape the island and I followed.” The man with no name explained. Silence reigned, Jack turned over all of this recently acquired data in his mind.
“Why did you bring us here?” He asked finally.
“Ah. Now therein lies the really interesting stuff. You see, I’ve become so powerful that I cannot find any true adversaries to battle with. I’ve become bored, leading armies and never really doing any of the fighting myself. I began thinking...what could possibly pose a threat to me? And then it came to me, true love. The opposite of me. All the positive feelings. Of all of those good feelings, true love is the most powerful. I had this epiphany a little before the invasion of Baltimore. I searched the area over, combing it for potential love warriors; and I found you two. The two of you, whether you know it or not, share something truly special. In this superficial world of birth control, hookers, one night stands and silicon; true love is a dying thing. Rarely any married couples stay together anymore. It’s depressing honestly.
“So...I called you here, to me. I wanted you brought to me. I wanted to you sharp witted, hence all the battles. So come now...it’s time to fight. Time for the last showdown. One of us will die. One of us will perish eternally. I’ll be happy with either outcome, for I only wish for a truly worthy opponent. Let the battle began.” The man raised his arms and suddenly Jack and Jenny cried out simultaneously. The room around them broke away and suddenly they were falling into an eternal darkness. Then, suddenly, just like that, they were somewhere else. Jack found himself in a vast open area, all around them was a black ocean. They seemed to be on some sort of island. Jack found himself confused.
Jenny was at his side. They were both wearing some sort of strange armor, lit a bizarre mix of medieval knights armor and modern day Kevlar. Jack wielded a large, sharpened sword and Jenny held a massive war ax. There was a dark mist around them, and suddenly it began to form into something. All of the mist collected in front of them, forming into some massive, hideous dark monstrosity. It rose above them, towering over them by a few stories. It was vaguely humanoid in shape, with huge claws and teeth and glowing red eyes. The thing seemed to be composed of living darkness.
In his mind, Jack made sense of it. Whether he was just this smart or the knowledge was placed into his mind, he didn’t know. This was a mental realm, held within the mind of the creature. This monster before them was the creature in its true form. The armor and weapons represented Jack and Jenny’s minds and their love. The battle began far too quickly. The monster swiped at them, sending the pair flying back. Jack landed with a roll and ran forward, finding that he could move far faster than normal. He jumped and was surprised to find himself flying through the air. Landing on the great beasts chest, he plunged the blade deep into its thick flesh. The monster roared and swatted him away, while he crashed to the ground Jenny charged up to the thing and swung her great battle ax; slicing through one of its legs. The monster roared again and slammed its fist down, but Jenny was far too quick.
Jack regained his composure and continued his assault. Together the two of them hacked and sliced and carved the massive beast up. Huge amounts, gallons, of black blood flew on the air. They were too quick for it. As the battle went on the pair began glowing with an intense white light. The beast continued fighting best it could, blocking and swiping; but it began to slow down. Over centuries of going unchallenged the dark being had grown weak and almost careless. Now it was paying for such acts. Jack plunged his sword into the thing’s thigh, causing it to rear up and let out a roar so loud it shook the entire land. It hunched forward, on its hands and knees, breathing heavily and labored.
“So...” it gasped, it’s voice like sickness and plague. “I’ve...finally...been...bested.”
“Go to Hell.” Jack growled, he brought his massive sword down onto the great monster’s neck, severing its head and cutting completely through. The head rolled away, a huge torrent of black blood spurting out. Jack’s vision suddenly blurred and he stumbled over to Jenny, who was collapsing onto the ground. All around them the mental world shook and shuddered, falling apart. Now with no one to hold it together, it was coming undone. Jack wondered if he would survive as he faded into blackness, but didn’t care; at least he had killed it.
“Did we do it?” Jack asked. Jenny blinked and then looked around.
“I don’t know.” she replied.
“Wait...listen.” Jack said suddenly.
“What?” Jenny looked around apprehensively.
“Shh...” Jack put his finger on her lips. They listened. All around them it was dead silent, save for the sound of a soft breeze and the ocean somewhere distant. There were no screams, no shrieks, no inhuman roars, no explosions, no cars crashing, no bullets firing. No chaos, no war, no combat. Nothing. Just calm serene quiet.
“We did it.” Jenny whispered. A soft golden light began to spill into the street and the two looked over, the sun was rising.
“Christ.” Jack whispered. “This is...freaking perfect. I mean, literally; it can’t get any better than this.” He stated. “I mean, we defeat the monsters, find out we’re truly in love and wake up in the middle of the street at sunrise. How...” Jenny quieted him.
“Honey...let’s not question it; okay? Sometimes it’s just fate. Now let’s count our blessings, and move on.” She stated.
“Move on? To where?” Jack replied. Jenny to his hand in hers and began walking down the street.
“Anywhere but here.” She replied.