Hungry ghost hell chapter 3

    ***chapter 3***


     Josh slowly gets up, patting himself down double checking that indeed every item including his clothing the twin demonesses had shattered into sparkling dust was gone. He was so focused on this however he didn't notice something creeping along the corner of the shack, a creature with a body like a wolf, but the neck and head of a river otter and tail of a lion. The beast pounces on him so quickly he barely has time to notice the motion and scream while raising his left arm, the beast's fangs sink into his flesh knocking him on his back, even as Josh's screams fill the forest and beats on the beast on the side of its head with his free hand; it just shakes its head back and forth ripping a chunk out of his. It pulls back slightly to chomp down on the torn meat and skin as Josh craddles his bleeding arm trying to scramble backwards. However both he and the beast stop with the same confused look. The pain in his arm stops and a blue glow manifest in the wound taking the shape of his missing area before filling in just as it had before; the piece of flesh in the creature's mouth shifts from meat to the blue ghostly form and emits specks of light. The creature spits it out and shakes its head about with its tongue rolling out making horrible yet distincly disgusted noises. It fears up looking at Josh hisses and runs off.

  ******

   Up a hill hidden in a small camoflauged leantoo a woman watches the scene at the shack through binoculars and calls in on a radio, "Roberta calling in, activity at Slasher Shack, either a new arrival or a respawn, looks like the guy Stevens reported in the pick up, different clothing however. An oddity to report, he was attacked by an otter-wolf, after taking a chunk out of the guy's arm the demon backed off and acted like a dog after biting into a lemon before running away. I am some distance away however I spotted some strange light around the man's arm before he stood up; he looks to be an instant healer; however I suspect he may be a Trojan. Brown short hair, Caucasian, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans."

   ******

   "Charles reporting in, I have eyes on the suburbs, the two out of place Alpha looking demons are there, they appear to just be randomly breaking shit. Smashing in window, smashing cars, aaand they just knocked a house down and wait...I think they're looking for something they've split up. Stevens the white plated one is heading your way, the black plated one is heading south.."

   ******

    Josh walks around the small cabin and apparently having nothing better to do with his time decides to walk inside. However as soon as he does what looked to just be a slumped over scarecrow springs to life weidling a machete, Josh as no time to react as automatic gun fire fills the cabin blasting the thing to pieces, two men have rushed in the front door yelling so rapidly he can't make out what they are saying, but he knows its English, which aside from his own words he hasn't heard another human voice since this whole ordeal began. However once outside he is ordered to stand still. There are eight people in survivalist gear, he's encountered people like this back home, mountain dwelling survavalists who think the world is going to end and they're going to be the anti-zombie or whatever militia rulers of the new world.

   "Stop making so much fucking noise," growls an older man with a grey beard stepping from the cabin, "have you dumb fuckers forgotten where we are?"

   The man walks to the ground surrounding Josh and without a word pulls out a large knife and cuts his own arm holding it out. Josh watches as after about twenty second the wound start to heal its self, but not like he does, more akin to sped up natural healing.

  "See that," says the man, "that surprised expression, you don't heal like we do. Why is that? My comrades here seem to think you're a Trojan, a demon passing its self off as a human to get into our groups and take us out; that is kill, torture, or by some other method seperate us so we're easier to prey upon and torture. One of our scouts saw you being attacked by an otter-wolf, thing took a chunk out of your arm, but our scout says that chunk sparked or exploded and you healed with a glow."

   "I..." starts Josh forcing the words, "I don't know."

  "How long you been here?" asks the old man.

  "Here?" asks Josh, "um...a day, but I was in the other place before."

   Josh is genuinly confused by what is happening looking around, "I was out mushroom hunting then I was in a place where I was a ghost, always hungry, thirsty, and tired; but I couldn't touch anything or sleep; things were always eating me as soon as I got solid and I'd be back to being a ghost; then I found a tunnel and...I thought I was home, I was lying down on the forest floore; I thought I had been knocked out and stuck in a fucked up trippy dream for several days thanks to some gas coming from a cave but..."

  "but," says the old man, "this world only looked like your's briefly, one small area, start walking around and you encounter alien animals, fucked up plants, traps. I don't know about that other shit you're talking about but.."

  The radios come on, "Head's up! Those two Alpha Demons are heading your way. They can fly, I repeat they are airborn!"

   The group barely has time to react as they see a glow in the air, the two demonesses are indeed airborn, their "wings" however are more like curtains of sparkling blue energy coming from their backs and controlled by their arms like the folds of capes. They rise and descend quickly landing on either side of Josh, towering a full head and shoulders above him. The group pull back as the two demonesses walk clock wise around Josh, their eyes only on him, their tails out and curverd so their steps form a circle around him. Their eyes are glowing, he can feel it peircing him, they are examining him.

   "Shoot them!" orders the old man, the ground fires wildly at them, however their bullets explode into blue sparks on contact with the demonesses. One does manage however to shoot Josh in the air causing him to topple over, he is caught by the black armored demoness whose hand wraps around his arm, her nails glow and that section of his arm turns ghostly, the bulle falling to the ground out of it, she lets go and his arm returns to normal.

  "Retreat!" shouts the old man, the group flees down the dirt road, the last two however one woman and the old man are staying back continuing to fire at the two demonesses who now stand between them and Josh, although he is behind them their tails are curved behind him at just below waist height he couldn't jump them or crawl under them without touching the tails or the backsides of the twin demonesses. That is until suddenly the rush forward, the old man and the woman scream. The white armored demoness has stabbed her right hand's nails into the old man's chest, likewise the black armored one has her nails in the woman's chest around the clavicle. Lights erupt from both people's eyes as a fuzzy white ball phases out of the woman's chest into the hand of the demoness, the woman's body falling limp to the ground. The old man's chest emits a white fuzzy ball with red stripes in it. Both demonesses chuck as they play with the balls, they are squishy like marshmallows. The black armored one raises it to her lips and slurps it up, licking her lips and *mewings*. The white armored one does the same, but half way into her mouth she pauses and spits it back into her hands and throws it at the man's body. it phases back into his chest and his eyes open wide and he *gasps!* loudly. She *growls* at the man and impales him through the head with her spear like tail, leaving him motionless. She hangs her tongue out in digust and turns around glaring at Josh, she hisses and marches towards him.

 Josh snaps out of his stunned silence and is about to run when he finds himself stuck in place, his body frozen in mid-air. The twin demonesses summon sigils, dark blue complex circles full of lines and strange symbols. He has seen these before, on other souls in the other world, small marks on their bodies that become more visible as they become more visible. He remembers them being more common near the farms; a mark. They mark him as their "food". The white armored one then raises his hand, her nails glowing his whole hand turns ghostly and is slurped up like a stretched cartoon characters into her mouth and she bites down severing it at the wrist. He can't help but wince even as he can't feel it. The ghostly image of his hand returning and the flesh soon after as before. However this time the twin demonesses leave him there as they make markings in the air that open up a portal and they step through. Leaving Josh standing there as the old man's head heals up and he sits up, the other six people return, but the woman's body is as dead as any corpse would be leaving these people to murmur among themselves.

   "They took her soul," says Josh surprising them, "they do the same thing to me all the time but..."

   He looks at his hands, "This is different, when they swallowed me up I'd return somewhere nearby where they ate me, but like this they just take bites."

  One man holds up his gun, "Why do you glow, we saw that with your hand, why do that to you but eat Roberta's soul, huh? How do we know that's what happened huh?"

  "He's telling the truth," says the old man, "They did it to me too, but...fuck I could feel it, feel leaving my body, feel being that fucking small helpless thing being toyed with, even feel that bitch's lips around me, that tongue licking me like I was some fucking cotton candy but...heh, guess they didn't like the taste of me."

   The olad man glares back at Josh, "How do we get her back?"

  Josh *shrugs*, "I...I don't know, I don't know how I even got here really, the tunnel I came through was not even two feet wide, a forest floor cave tunnel, I covered it up with leaves and rocks but, it was a short distance off a trail just up the road from that little town up that way."

   "Are we seriously considering a rescue mission?" asks one of the guys in the group, "those fucking things weren't even phased by our bullets. I may never have been the smartest guy in my class but even I'm picking up that this fucker here isn't the same sort of condemned soul that we are, this may sound crazy but I'm pretty damn sure he came from a different Hell and those demons weren't like any of the shit we've seen, not obeying the same rules as the beasts in these hills."

  "Speaking of which" comes another man, "its getting late people, the big predators are about to start stalking and we've made alot of noise."

   "What about him?" asks one of the men pointing at Josh, "they did something to him before they left, and he admits they followed his ass here."

   Roberta on the ground suddenly *gasps* and sits up, "Holy shit what just happened?"

  She pats herself, "I fucking melted but, I couldn't feel it, it was like I was getting more and more hungry and tired and shit and then...here I am, what the fuck."

  Josh's stomach growls and they draw their guns on him.

  "What, it was my stomach," he says.

  The old man speaks up, "lower your weapons. Young man we don't get hungry, or thirsty, at least not to any degree we can't learn to ignore; we can get tired though and go to sleep; that's how it works here. Food and drinks and whatnot are traps, temptations. Anyone whose been here for more than a few days will pick up on that. But we can discuss this back at base."

  He pauses, "However its clear those Alpha demons have your scent and were specifically targeting you."

  He looks at Roberta as she stands up, "They may have your scent too, to be safe we'll put you on suburb watch tonight away from base."

 "Understood sir," says Roberta.

 "As for you," says the old man adressing Josh, "we'll get you a walkie, but we can't risk Alpha demons finding our base. I used to be in a city before here where we had freelancers who'd stay in their own places and assist us as watchmen for anything heading our way. You help us and we'll help you. It looked to us like that otter-wolf didn't realize you weren't meat until after it took a chunk out of you."

  "and," says another guy, "that looked like it hurt, those demon bitches didn't look like it hurt when that one bit your hand off."

  "It doesn't," says Josh, "its like they numb me and my body becomes this candy they chomp on."

  "That's fucked up, and unfair." grumbles the guy.

 "Stay in one of the houses in the suburb," says the old man, "don't go through any doors inside however and don't mess with anything in there; its all traps. But being inside will at least keep you out of sight of the night predators. We'll bring you a walkie in the morning...and that said give us a head start, you too Roberta, if those Alphas come back sooner than later we'd rather not give them an oppertunity at all of us."