//-------------------------------------------------------// Fire Redux -by Disavowed ASH- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// She Poked It With a Stick //-------------------------------------------------------// She Poked It With a Stick September 4 1979 3:33 AM My name is David Sullivan, I'm a third rate Las Vegas private investigator. Last Tuesday I was in my black 1967 Ford Mustang eating a beef brisket sandwich, with a pickle and a bottle of coke, parked across a rundown Mexican cantina, in the middle of the Mojave desert. Why? Because I was hired to tail some accountant that started stealing from under his bosses nose. The thing is that I didn't see him get in, I heard that he frequented here, and I was waiting for him to leave so that I can corner him in the parking lot. I was wearing what I usually wear during these sort of affairs. Some worn jeans, my trusty black leather jacket, and my black boots. Why is that important? So that you know who they belonged too when you find them. And because it was somewhat intimidating, or at least it was to your common white collar. The lamp post next to the cantina was flickering on and off, giving off this of buzzing noise that you usually hear from electric lines. It was giving an eerie and unnatural feeling, one that was made worse by the fact that was the only sound that I was hearing. I was expecting yelling and some noise form the patrons inside, but I heard nothing it was like the place was dead and gone. The lights inside of the place where the only thing telling me that it there must be someone in there. Maybe they where all in some basement under a trap door behind the bar? Who knows? As soon as I consider giving my sandwich a second bite. I see this young woman, pretty thing, red head with some blond streaks in an odd bacon like pattern, wearing some jeans, boots, and a leather jacket. She was tightly holding the right side of her gut, breathing heavily as she looked around.  And then she noticed the car.  She probably also noticed my stupid face as I was looking straight at her. She then ran as fast as possible towards the car, which wasn't much because she stumbled a couple of times on the way. She then started banging on my car door. "Help, let me in, please!" She was tanned and had some incredible green eyes, that where right at that moment bloodshot and covered in tears. Her black jacket and pink blouse where covered in blood. Not being a cold bastard, I let her in as fast as I could. Locking the door for extra insurance. Once she entered the car, the rusted iron smell of blood and her sweat reached my nose. That confirmed to me that this was no bad dream brought by mixing stale tacos, hot sauce, and warm beer. It was real. Real as the hand that was attached to my arm. Then we heard it. The single worst sound I have heard in my life. A shriek equal parts roar, and sloshing gargle that sounded like something out of the deepest parts of my worst nightmares. Like some sort of primordial fear that remains because we evolved specifically to avoid it. Bacon Hair then looked at me and yelled. "DRIVE!" So I did exactly that, turned on the ignition and floored the pedal. I got into the street heading deeper into the desert away from the cantina as if Satan himself was on my heels. The sound of the wind and the ominous rumbling behind us, the sounds of rapid thumps coming ever closer to the vehicle made me asshole so tight that you couldn't even pass a needle through it. I must have been going at eighty miles per hour, when we entered some freakish sandstorm in the middle of the night. Something that didn't make any sense, that there was no forecast for, and in no way should be there. The bacon haired lady yelled to me again, the fear in her eyes, in her voice in her very breathing apparent with each millisecond. "Don't let it get to meee! Celestia, what was I thinking!? Those old gods don't like each other! Stupid amulet wasn't worth this- COUGH-COUGH!" She started coughing up a whole pint of blood, onto her pants and my dashboard. Which was going to be a pain in the ass to clean later. That also told me that the poor girl had already a foot in the fucking grave. "Lady, what the fucking hell did you just get me into!? What the fuck is that thing!?" She answered quickly. "COUGH- A mis-" We then violently crashed into the side of some barn that came out of nowhere. --Probably didn't noticed it because I was paying more attention to my dying passenger than the fucking road.-- Naturally the clashing of wood and steel blurred my senses. "Son of a bitch!" I yelled in frustration, and soul shredding fear. I could still hear the haunting roar of the sandstorm, the horrible yell of the creature that probably came out of Cthulhu's asshole. And the pained groans of the bacon haired mad woman that got us into this mess. As soon as I get my bearings I left the car running tripping and falling to the floor as a result. Probably looked like a drugged moron in some bad trip. I then go to the passenger seat to get bacon hair. Once there I noticed once I opened the door that she had lost a lot of blood. More than I initially though, and definitely more than pint. She was loosing consciousness, and fast. Her eyes flickering with a sort of barely awake haze that told me how little time I had. I pulled her out quickly and dragged her to the nearest of the barns support beams. The barn itself looks like it had been abandoned for decades, with enough dust to fill a few bathtubs.  With a calendar that read 1928 with big friendly letters on the table by the barn door. I also noted the abundance of rusty tools, and the smell of dry manure. She naturally was having difficulty keeping her eyes open, so I decided to check the right side of her gut to see extent of the damage, considering that it was where her bleeding was coming from. I lift up her blouse to see, and I notice a deep massive gash, the kind like you would expect from a machete, or another large blade. So I acted quickly and I took the needle form my sewing kit, and fishing wire from trunk, along with a bottle of Scotch that I started immediately pouring it over her wound. Figuring that the cheep booze would help disinfect the whole in her gut. "AAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!" She screamed at the stinging of the alcohol. Then I pulled out the lighter out of my jacket, and started cauterizing her wound. She screamed louder. "AAAAAAAAAGGHH!!!!! MOTHERFUCKER! GHAAA!!!" Hearing that was breaking my heart. I really couldn't do anything about the pain. I stopped the bleeding at least. I then brought the scotch bottle over to her mouth an had her drink some of the leftover scotch to numb the agony a little. "What the he-!" She said right before I had her drink from the bottle, pouring as much booze as a could into her maw. I let the sweet bliss of alcohol numb her senses enough so that she can have some moniker of rest. "Dammit, Ah!!" She yelled as a pulled the bottle out of her mouth. I looked at her, then I decided to try some bedside manner. "So, whats your name?" She looked at me like I jet grew a head out of my ass. But at least she answered anyway. "Sunset, Sunset Shimmer." Then she grabbed her now catheterized gash. Clenching her teeth, then occasionally yelling when she couldn't take it anymore. She was still in pain but she started yelling less, I thought that would give me more time. I was wrong. Then I heard an odd growl, something that didn't register in my mind as an animal, but still sounded savage as all hell. The storm was till roaring outside like a scream of a thousand banshees . And the thump of each of the unseen horrors legs where coming closer and louder, the horrible sounds giving me the cold sweat of terror and despair. Bacon Hair was looking with her tear filled eyes right at me. I start turning my head and then I noticed that my right arm was missing, and that it was at the right side of the barn still twitching as if it had only being attached to my shoulder half a second ago. Somehow I wasn't feeling the pain, somehow I could still feel my arm there despite it being severed and thrown across the empty room. Then I felt being impaled from my back by something, I looked down and I saw an appendage that I couldn't identify. But it was sharp and jagged, and then Everything went black... And that is the story of my death. Or at least that's what I thought.... Because then I heard her voice. "Wake up!" And that is how It began, my seven years of hell.