Chapter 25: Dark

Time left until monsters respawn: 4 hours, 7 minutes.

I hear the sharp, loud rapport of the Colt Python four times before Jose calls for me to come up. I climb the frozen escalator stairs and find myself in almost total darkness. I use Yellow Ray but the spell flickers and shorts out. “Shit this is going to be tough,” I say. "Some kind of magical interference with my flashlight spell."

“Straight shot hallway,” Jose says. “You can see the emergency lights on the ceiling, right? Follow them when I say.”

He refers to the dim red lights dotting the ceiling in this area. I can barely make it out but I think this was the shipping and packing station they used in the old store to get people stuff they ordered online. I think the hall is lined with those packing stations but I can't be sure what's on each.

Jose just says “Hold,” and I stay put, crouching in case that's helpful. I hear him quietly glide forward. I see the muzzle flash of his gun briefly light up the room. It's enough to see what he's killing. They're some kind of yeti morlock Bigfoot critters, except about 4 feet tall. Ugly apeish things with matted green-brown hair and red skin. They shriek at Jose when they charge him. And as they do he drops them cold.

He takes out what must be a dozen or more of them. He takes his time in here, creeping forward, taking the shots he needs to, and then progressing again. I hear a door open nearby. I think that's Jose because he says “Nope!” and I hear the door close.

There's a banging of heavy blows against a wooden door and Jose tells me “Head back!” That's something Jose has literally never told me to do so I sure as shit listen.

I can see the light from the rat hallway and head for it. Behind me I hear the crashing and shattering of wood. It sounds just like the shattering of a wooden box four years ago.

I turn and see the glow of yellow electricity shine in Jose's gun. It lights him up, but not much else. After two seconds of the charge I see a horrendous creature come into the light. It's massive like a gorilla but has four arms. The third second passes as the monster bites into Jose's shoulder and the gun fires hot lightning into the creature. The bolt enters it and shoots out the back, arcing and frying the wall beyond.

The quad gorilla screams and reels back, but it isn't dead. It's painful wail is so loud it hurts my eardrums but Jose doesn't seem bothered. He aims and fires two shots into the thing's open mouth, exploding the back of its throat and skull.

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I can hear Jose's heavy breathing and he says “Clear” before I hear him slump to the floor.

Now that the threats are dead, I try Yellow Ray again and this time it works, making my hand glow. I find Jose quickly. He's bleeding a lot but I grab him some health recovery snack cakes and he heals up over the course of a minute.

I look around as he heals. “These creatures, what are they even supposed to be?” I scan one and it just says Dumb Ape. The big one is a Big Dumb Ape. Wow, helpful. Thanks, scanning ability.

I poke some of the dead until they give up the profits. Each dumb ape drops 10 dollar coins. The big one drops 50. One dumb ape drops a banana. Hilarious. I scan it anyway and find something actually useful. It's got a little sticker on it explaining what it does.

Second Banana

Eating this places another Second Banana in your inventory, so long as you have an empty inventory slot.

I hold it up to Jose. “Well sir, you now have infinite bananas.”

He shrugs in an “alright, sounds pretty cool” way and takes it.

The area has a ladder leading down in the small side room that held the big dumb ape, and another opposite-way-we-want-to-go escalator down at the end of the hall.

Jose leers over the ladder and goes “Toys.”

I join him and shine my light down the ladder. The room below is well lit. There's a familiar clacking sound. The sound of building bricks snapping together and apart again.

“Look, I support your love of guns, you know this.” I look at him as I try to let him down gently. “But if I have to fight a swarm of plastic blocks I'd rather off myself right now.”

“But guns...”

“No, Jose,” I say chidingly and pull him by the shoulder in the direction of the escalator.

We get to the next escalator and the area below is thankfully well lit. A little too well lit. As we approach I hear an all too familiar refrain.

“Get it? Got it? Good!” The friendly white lady voice over plays along with scenes of people shopping and being waaay too excited to find deals. It's part of an ad reel that plays on a loop in the electronics department TVs.

For anyone who has to work in that department, we all know that 7 minute advertisement reel by heart. It is a chant which breeds madness. It is a repetitive loop of unerring corporate jingoism.

I slowly turn to my best friend, my buddy, my honorary brother and ask “Jose, how much space do you have in your inventory?”

He closes his eyes to check the menu. “About 34 slots. Why?”

“Wanna fill all those slots with giant ass TVs?”