Rest Stop Chapter 4
You know tha drill, all characters belong to me and blah, blah . . . enjoy the story thus far
"Wait," Joey, with a frightened expression on his face, called after Xavier, "where are you going?" Xavier had picked up the crowbar again and held it tightly in his right paw and was about to leave before Joey asked him. Xavier looked over his shoulder and at the trembling lion who was still in the clutches of his lover. Xavier, expressionless, whispered towards the two.
"I'm going into the ladies' room to stop that thing and get my keys back," he said softly to the scared lion and snow leopard. Mark held Joey tightly in his arms, trying to smooth out the shakes between them as Xavier continued. "You two stay here where it's safe," ordered the flying fox. Turning back to the front, he continued his trek out of the room with the door closing behind him, silencing his footsteps from the felines' ears. The two sat in silence, trying desperately to hear where Xavier was going, but couldn't make out the footsteps at all.
"I hope he'll be all right by himself," said Joey as his shudders increased in the grasp of Mark. His tail wrapped around Mark's waist tightly and Mark's wrapped around Joey's waist as well, creating a tight safety embrace as the two shivered in each other's arms. Joey nuzzled his head into Mark's chest and felt his heart thump fast and heavily in terror, but unbeknownst to Joey, his was doing the same. Mark rested his chin onto Joey's head as he tried his best to purr for his kitten, but failed as his purr didn't vibrate normally.
"He will," Mark whispered into Joey's ear after a while, causing it to twitch from the breeze of his breathing as he nuzzled Joey gently, "he's always been a strong guy . . . with a cute butt." Joey let out a nervous chuckle, which surprisingly relaxed the both of them. Joey nuzzled into Mark's chest some more and purred more stably than his lover as he listened to Mark's leaping heart pounding against his ear. Mark's purr rolled gently from his throat, a bit more stable than before, as his chest vibrated in comfort. Joey gave Mark a gentle lick on his cheek, eliciting a soft purr from him.
"I hope you're right, babe," Joey said finally. Their embrace tightened suddenly as a muffled sound filled the air. It was the ladies' room door they heard slamming shut.
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Xavier stood in front of the ladies' room and pressed his paw onto the door, giving some pressure to push it open. The door creaked open with slight rust resistance and stepped in with his crowbar at the ready, just in case if anything jumped out at him. Nothing did. The restroom looked just like the other as if it was reflected in a mirror, only it had a few more stalls and no urinals. But other than the subtle changes, it looked just like the other. The door creaked eerily shut behind him and gave off an audible slam, which jolted him a little as he readied his crowbar, just in case it heard him enter.
With the crowbar in his hands, he stepped deeper into dank, musty and poorly lit room. The fluorescent lights up above flickered and snapped gently as he stood there with the iron instrument's crooked head pointing forward, ready to tear off the thing's head in one swing if he had to . . . 'If it has one,' he thought as a wave of chills racked his body, sending shivers sharply up his spine. 'Okay, why did I think that?' He cursed himself for thinking the very idea, but it loomed in his mind now. 'Nice one, now I scared myself.'
Anchored to the tiled floor, he strained to listen for even the slightest of sounds, anything out of the ordinary, anything at all. His ear twitched from each gentle chirp of a cricket or gentle rustling sound, but those sounds traveled in from the outside. The room itself, however, had an uneasy silence, almost a graveyard silence. This unease caused Xavier to shiver more heavily as he stood there in the silence.
The place seemed ordinary, regardless of the silence. So, he took a one step forward into the dimness . . . a metallic clatter echoed off the tiles causing Xavier to tense up and grip the crowbar. His fur prickled as a sudden tremble slinked down his spine when the clatter became louder as the thing drew closer. His paws tightened even more onto the crowbar as an echoic creak filled the atmosphere in the claustrophobic restroom. A sudden metallic slam onto the floor in the far end stall caused Xavier to jump and shiver as the crowbar trembled in his paws.
"I wuh . . . want m-m-my kuh . . . keys b-b-back," Xavier choked out as his words bounced off the tiled walls, breaking past the shivers the best he could, "or you'll g-g-get yuh . . . your daily iron, bitch!" A small hiss rolled from below the far end stall as gentle clacks bounced off the tiled walls. A growling muzzle poked out from below the stall and a bony clawed paw stretched out beneath the door as it crawled out into the open. Xavier stood there in shock with shivers rushing through him as the bony growling thing crouched to the floor. It looked like an anthro rat, only naked and beast-like.
No fur covered the almost feral creature; only shiny perspiring flesh glistened in the dim light as it sat there on all fours. The underbelly of the beast was sunken in, starving, and its ribs were noticeable. The genitals down below showed that it was definitely a male. No muscles were present on its form, but it was probably agile because of its skinniness. Its bony left forearm oozed a black syrup from the wound where Xavier had struck it before, and it didn't look none too happy about it. The fleshy rat tail swayed angrily behind it as its lips curled back in a low growl, acting like it knew who had struck it and was standing right before it. Something shiny in its left paw caught Xavier's attention; the Rustbox Eighty Eight keys! The key ring was in the gnarly curled index finger as drool slid from its curled lips and dripped in long strands to the dirty floor below it. Its eyes were soulless and sunken into its head as a thick film had flowed over them.
'It must be blind,' thought the frightened flying fox. The rat beast's ears fell back as its growl grew deeper, more menacing. Without him realizing it, he was gripping the crowbar so hard that a warm red fluid started to trickle down the shaft of the cold iron bar and dripped to the floor. The creature's triangular muzzle curled back, as if sensing the smell of blood in the air and growled hungrily at Xavier. It stood up on all fours from its sitting position. The sudden pressure and shifted weight onto his left arm caused the black bile to squirt from the forearm and splatter the floor, causing Xavier to cringe from the sight, but the creature seemed unfazed by its leaking arm. With each step it took, more bile oozed from the wound, staining the floor with its disgusting infection as it lumbered towards a retreating Xavier.
Xavier thought he was done for as his back connected with a gentle thud against the cool tiled surface of the wall behind him. The creature crouched down and knocked its hips, growling deeply as it readied itself to pounce hungrily onto the tall white fruit bat. The rat beast shrieked, launching itself off of its back legs. Xavier instinctively shot the crowbar up horizontally in defense. Just in time. The creature's paws clasped onto the cold bar as Xavier stretched out his arms to keep the growling and snarling rat beast out of reach. The creature's triangular muzzle snapped at Xavier's face, trying to bite a chunk out of him as he struggled to keep the thing back. Its hot breath that curled from its muzzle smelled of corpses and rotten blood as it snapped at Xavier's unprotected face. Its overall stench that permeated from its pours was rotten, like old sewage with the dead sloshing around the gross soup inside the disgusting pipes deep in the Earth.
Like a spring, Xavier brought his arms back and snapped them out suddenly, sending the damned creature off of him. It landed and recoiled as it launched back at him for another attack. Xavier gripped hard onto the crowbar and brought it upward in a hard uppercut swing with all his might. The beast shrieked as the blunt weapon's U-bend cracked hard against its exposed ribs, busting them and sending it careening backward as black bile flew from its open muzzle and splattered Xavier's face. It crumpled to the floor on its side in a fleshy heap with a loud, echoic thud. The room fell silent once again.
The heap lay there with its back to Xavier, lifeless. No signs of even the slightest of a twitch. With the crowbar in tow, Xavier, panting heavily from the battle, cautiously tiptoed towards the lump on the floor and stopped before it. Its stench still lingered about it as it laid there. He stood above the fallen beast and extended the crooked end of the crowbar outward carefully, tapping the thing in the back, then reeled back, just in case if the thing lunged again. No pounce came. He sighed in relief as he leaned over the creature and noticed black bile dripping form its cocked open muzzle, making a small pool under its head as its filmy eyes stared off at the tiled wall in a silent stare.
'I think its dead,' thought Xavier as he inspected the rat's body head-to-toe . . . a slight glimmer in its left paw caught his attention and his face lit up. "My keys!" he said suddenly, but he brought his paw up to his muzzle and clamped down on it, hoping the creature didn't hear him. It lay lifeless. He huffed out a relieved sigh and removed his paw as he bent down and outstretched it cautiously. Inch by inch, he slowly brought his paw closer to his prize as they dangled in its limp grasp. His finger touched the cool metal suddenly and he shot a glance over at the rat beast's face, wanting to see if the creature felt the keys shift. Bile still ran from its lips as it continued to stare blankly at the wall. He came back to work of retrieving his keys and encircled them with his paw slowly, giving a gentle pull, but the creature's finger was tightly curled around the ring. Xavier continued to give gentle firm tugs, but also kept a close eye on the beast just in case it decided to have a quick lunch. After a few hard tugs, however, the keys came free of the creature's grasp and were his again.
Standing again over the heaped rat beast, he slid the keys into his back pocket and grimaced at the thing lying there. "Thank you," he said sarcastically as he panted softly. Still carrying the stained crowbar in his dried bloody paws, he turned around and started for the restroom door, but paused in mid-step. "And stay down, rat fetus" he said firmly, not looking over his shoulder to face the creature as he clasped his paw around the door handle and pulled it gently open. He was greeted by a gust of wind as he stepped out into the cool evening air. The sun gave off beautiful violets and purples as the door creaked shut behind him, giving off a gentle slam as the rat fetus lay on the floor silently, motionless . . . but the finger that housed the key ring twitched suddenly.
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