Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Raggedy’s Return, Part 1: the Rescue

So we got word that Raggedy needed help. Last agreed to help me try to save him. His reasons for doing so were that he might be able to draw the Black Dog out, since he’s had issues with the Fear in the past. Always the pragmatist, I guess, but if it saves someone’s life, I’m not going to argue.

He was stuck in a Florida swamp, so we all went down there to pull him out of the muck. We managed to pinpoint his location and took one of those fan boats out to fetch him. When we found him, he was passed out in the back seat of his car. He was in pretty terrible shape. His injuries weren’t too bad, but they were starting to get infected, and he was covered with bug bites. In addition, he was pretty dehydrated.

Boston and Last went down to the car to try to pull him out, but the doors and windows were locked. “Shit,” Boston said. “Thought this might happen. Fang, spark plug.”

Fang tossed him a spark plug. Boston smashed it apart, grabbed a piece of it, and chucked it at a window. The whole thing shattered. They managed to get Raggedy out the window and pull him onto the boat. “Get him some water,” Last told us.

Raggedy was barely conscious. He looked up at me through unfocused eyes. “Oh, hey, It’s you. Thanks, kid,” he croaked.

“Quiet,” Crimson said. He screwed the cap off of a bottle of water and helped Raggedy get some down his throat. “Focus on saving your strength.”

“Should we try to keep him conscious?” Maggie asked.

“I…I’m not sure. I think so? We need to get him back to the safe house and the doctor we’ve got there ASAP, though.”

We heard a noise behind us and turned to see another fan boat coming after us. Last swore.

“We’ve got company. Proxies. Maybe some other Fear’s, but maybe we’ve just stepped on their toes. Let’s go, now.”

“Wait,” I said, “we’re in a swamp. Can’t we just let, like…EAT deal with them or something?”

Last laughed. “Like EAT cares about anything that won’t advance its own goals. We’re on our own here.”

Boston smirked. “Not entirely.” As their boat approached, he grabbed something out of a duffle bag. He chucked it at them, and as it arced through the air, I caught a glimpse of what it was: a grenade.

The other proxies saw it too. They dived out of the boat before the entire thing exploded.

“You—you just…you’re just leaving them there to die?”

He shrugged. “They might survive.”

Anyway, we got Raggedy back to the safe house. He recovered fairly quickly, fortunately, and I’ll be following up with the aftermath of that. But the Masks…I don’t know how comfortable I am with how casual they are with all this. I’ve had a lot of thinking to do lately.

Anyway, I’ll be back with more soon. Stay safe. Never quit.