FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter Three: On the Highway

Zander had planned out the prefect weekend, the security threat was at its lowest percentage in a decade and he for once had managed to claim a weekend off. Traffic on I-95 was low and no one had any reservations at any hotels in Baltimore, he had saved up enough money and Adriano seemed fun enough that he wanted to go along with him for once.

So as they were driving down the traffic less interstate, Zander felt really good when his engine decided to make a few noises and a steady stream of smoke started to fume out of the engine. Feeling that for once his personal health was more valuable than a hotel reservation, he pulled off and stopped at the next stop, which was a rest area.

He pulled in front of building and parked, turning off his car as he and Adriano walked out of the car and towards the front of the car.

“Ok, what’s wrong with this old clunker today?” Zander said as he opened up the engine, looking into the machine and trying to figure out what was wrong. He looked down into the car and tried to figure out why it was smoking as they drove. Even through it was a terrible car and could barely drive, it never smoked.

“I don’t know maybe the shadows did it?” Adriano said out of nowhere, pointing towards the forest behind them. Looking over the two lanes of interstate, he turned around and saw three shadowy figures standing, before simply wisping away into the wind. Zander ignored it and figured it was his eyes making stuff up, or connecting a few shadows that he could see.

“No, maybe we’re just tired but either way. Shadows don’t exist, we just need to lay down for a while before we crash or something.” Zander said as he realized just how tired he was getting to be. He rubbed crud out of his eye and closed the car’s engine, hoping that it would sort itself out and they’d be able to continue.

“Zander, do want anything to drink? I’m going in to one of the machines.” Adriano asked as he looked at the rest stop. Zander made a confused shoulder shrug as he tried to figure what he wanted. The snow leopard looked into the engine having no idea what was wrong, but he figured it would sort itself out. He remembered the machines often had chocolate bars, and he decided to join up.

“Hey Adriano wait up!” Zander said as he turned around and followed the human into the rest area. He walked into the rest stop and looked around the architecture was amazing, a massive overarching roof with a glass ceiling letting moon light pass in and letting a layer of shade in the massive rest center.

“Sorry, you two you might want to hurry up this place closes in twenty minutes.” The attendant said as she saw the two walk in but the area seemed to be filled with people. Zander walked over and stood at her desk as Adriano walked over by the vending machines.

“Do you have the numbers of any good mechanic, we broke down.” Zander asked as he leaned over the counter, trying to hide that his car had broken down.

“Yeah, I think we do. By the way my name is Patricia.” She said as she pushed herself off the wall and slid over to the other side of the rest center and picked up a few packets from under the desk. Sliding over she handed Zander the packets.

“Why is this place so dark, I can see the light bulbs?” Zander asked as he noticed that even at 10ish o’clock at night the only light on was his car’s headlights and the open side on the side of the highway.

“Well we’re using the moon as an experiment to see how much electricity we could save by not using the main room lights instead focusing moon light from the top.” Patricia said as she pointed to the glass ceiling, looking around Zander saw the multicolored areas around the rest center, it looked beautiful.

“My name is Zander, and that is Adriano don’t expect anything out of him.” He said as he picked up the packets and examined them, seeing that there were a few nearby and he decided to keep them just in case. He placed them in his pocket and looked around listening to conversations as he walked towards Adriano.

“Listen I’m just saying Paul, we need to be more realistic, maybe you could take a job until you get through college, I can’t support both of us.” A woman said as they walked by.

“Listen Regina, my music career is going places. I’ve got five bookings in Baltimore. I’m going places sis so be more supportive, if you want some of my moolah.” Paul said as Zander walked just out of earshot range, quietly laughing knowing that Paul was mooching on his sister.

“Adriano, do they have Kit-Kat bars? I love Kit-Kat bars.” Zander said as he put his hand on Adriano’s back snuggling around him as he was handed the familiar red packaging. He rubbed up against him and made a purring noise with content, as Adriano patting him on the head.

“You treat me too well.” Zander said as he opened the bar and stuffed it in his mouth, where instead of being digested normally it would be converted into complete energy and stored in his body for purposes that it would be used. Instead of storing energy in chemical bonds he could instead use his beetle and convert it back into biologic energy.

He threw out the wrapper and laughed a bit as he forgot about his worries and decided to enjoy the situation a bit. Suddenly there was the sound of locking around the building. Zander looked around and large shutters descended over the building locking them in, and darkening the room except for the light of the moon shining in.

“Hey the doors are locked, we can’t get out!” A man cried it was different than Paul’s, so he figured that there were six people in the building, walking over to the door he grabbed his phone and shined it forward. The door appeared to have a lock on it and the shutters descended over them.

“Ok, that might be a problem.” Adriano said as he walked over to the door and tried to push them in. “Ok, so anyone else in the building that wants to make themselves known?”

Suddenly before they could react there was a screaming coming from the bathroom. Zander ran first, running into the lights in the girl’s bathroom as he looked around. He looked around and made himself known as he tried to figure out who or what screamed.

“Hello is any in here?” Zander said, he definitely heard something in the bathroom and he walked forward, everything telling him turn back as he pushed on the first door and relaxed as no one was in there. He slowly stepped forward as pushed open the next door, everyone could hear his steps as they gathered behind him.

He walked forward and stood at the last door knocking on it as he knew what could possibly be in it. He backed up a bit and knocked on the door, he pushed on it and it was locked. He heard it unlock quite suddenly, and backed up hoping that a person would walk out.

He stood frozen for a second and so did everyone behind him as they hoped for the best but expected the worse. Suddenly the door opened and a dead body flipped off the toilet and landed on the floor. Zander backed up as he looked at the body before him.

He knelled down and applied his finger to her neck, after a few seconds it conformed the worse to him. He stood up and turned around looking at Adriano as he looked at him. Everyone was now a subject and something either human or supernatural was now out to get them and their life.

“Ok, someone in this rest stop killed this lady. I’m not saying that it is any of you, multiple times it has been supernatural forces and if you want to get out of here we are going to need some ground rules.” Zander said as he walked forward, looking around and trying to gauge his audience’s reaction.

He looked around and everyone looked to be frightened and a bit angered, Adriano was used to this. Adriano figured that over the years as Zander grew up around his father, he became quite accustomed to death and didn’t know how to publically respond.

“Oh wait, sorry. None of you will die today, and I will solve the murder of your random motorist.” Zander said as he didn’t help with getting the crowd on his side. He looked around and everyone looked like they were willing to listen to him.

“Ok, first things first. We are all suspects, each one of us could have done this. Second, nobody can leave so we don’t have to worry about that, and third off you there, what’s your name?” Zander said pointing out that last person that they saw, the one that was at the door. He looked a bit disgruntled and was wearing a suit, suggesting he was important.

“Greg.” He said with little to no excitement. Zander looked around as he realized he could quickly deal with a very hostile crowd, which had little to no remorse for him, if he revealed his powers. If they knew he had powers, while he knew he was innocent, energy based super powers took away a lot of bargaining power he had.

“Ok, first off someone had to get in here and escape very quickly, so we know this thing is going to be a little supernatural, is their anyway it could escape?” Zander asked as he looked around, he wouldn’t be able to scan the area and it was possible the entity would have been able escape the area.

He looked around the bathroom, ignoring the dead lady and viewing into the stall, he looked around and saw nothing of interest. Adriano pulled him out and faced him against the crowd.

“Well, it is possible that it could go through the peephole in the stall, we’d tried to fill it in but the power of … nevermind.” Patricia said as she realized how improbable that it would be for something to use that. She shut up and nobody else had any ideas.

“Ok, back to the mainroom, it will be better if we stay together; we all leave together and if we stay together we will definitely leave together, anyone have any problems with this?” Zander asked as he pushed everyone out of the restroom before turning to the lady and closing her eyes.

“I will find whoever did this to you and will get revenge, just ask my father.” Zander said as he looked at the lady, promising himself that he would help her. While he was bad socially with death, he respected the dead even as Rolando’s bodies kept piling up.

“Ok, continue on everyone keep here. No one leave this room, if were alone we are vulnerable.” Zander said as he tried to set up conditions, so first someone see if we can communicate outside with the police, get them here and surround ding the building.

“No way, we are not involving the police, if they see my car they’ll….” Paul said, suddenly as Regina looked at him weird. Zander thought strange as he walked over to the musician and decided to interrogate him. He walked over to the musician and viewed him as he tried to figure out what game he was playing.

“Interesting game you’re playing, this road is the road of new beginnings. Now the amazing thing about this road is that there is one path you can take without being seen by license plate scanners and it leads all the way to Baltimore, so let’s say you stole that car. We’re still with in Metro PD’s range, but in Baltimore they couldn’t arrest you without a warrant.” Adriano said as he realized what Paul was doing, Regina looked at him when she connected pieces she had.

“You stole that car, you said it was a Junker you got for free. I can’t believe you lied to me. Everything I have done for you, and you thank me by stealing a car, what kind of person does this?” Regina said suddenly standing up.

“I gave you my life and you give me this, some bother you turned out to be. I slaved for you, trying to keep you afloat as you wasted your time with those junkies and this is how it works out, I have never been so disappointed.” Regina said pacing around as so many things in her life became clear.

“Ok, another problem, we either have no signal or the shutters are blocking the signal which means we are truly on our own.” Zander said as he stood on a table, looking up as he tried to collect some signal, he hoped some would come from the chandelier above letting in the moonlight. Everyone stayed gathered in the room, Patricia was trying to use the security system that she would have been used to knowing. Greg was around her examining the system, suggesting that he was experienced in security systems or that kind of hardware.

“So what are we going to do?” Adriano asked as he wondered what was happening to Zander, Adriano didn’t care for much. He never liked football, or video games, or even fast cars, but if he knew one thing he did care about Zander and his cases it was wonderful. The wonderful world of spies and government corruption and he loved it.

“We’ll we do what we always do, we survive it might be hard but that’s how we always have done it.” Zander said as he laid down on the desk looking up to the glass ceiling and enjoying the moonlight shining down on his body. Adriano playfully rubbed his body as they made a moment of peace in a long battle that they had to fight.

“We can do this, but maybe next time we go on a road trip, no more investigations into the evil and the unknown, because that seems to be happening to often.” Adriano said as he and Zander laughed.

“Don’t pretend you don’t love it.” Zander joking said as he and both Adriano knew they both loved the life style. Even though Adriano had no powers or anything special, except for kick ass hair, he had human perspective. Something so powerful, a superhero could never hold it. Zander brought Adriano up a bit, and Adriano kept him down on the ground.

As the reminisced on the times, their peace was interrupted by a howling scream. Zander shot up and as he looked around, he realized that in her anger Regina had ran away from the main room in anger. Looking around the screams seemed to be coming from the bathroom, which should have been expected.

“Shit come on, everyone stay together!” Zander yelled as he tried to get a list of everyone in the room. He ran over to the bathroom, as everyone gathered behind him. Once again he went into the women’s bathroom and he feared the worse. Suddenly the screaming went on continuing.

Zander walked in running over to the stall, hoping they could save Regina. He walked over and saw her shaking a phone in her hand as a purple cloud encased her body. Zander looked in fear as suddenly the cloud realized it was being watched and it killed her.

She feel to the floor as the purple vapor cloud, vanished quite literally into thin air. Zander ran over and felt for a pulse on Regina. He backed up and let Paul see what happened as he backed up and closed her eyes. He took a breath as a another person in his care died.

Paul, enraged, ran over to Zander picking him up by the neck and slamming him against the stall door. He had fire in eyes and he looked like he was foaming in the mouth. Looking around Adriano held Greg and Patricia back from helping, he knew Zander could easily escape from this and wouldn’t hurt Paul unless it had to happen.

“You said you would save all of us but now one of us are dead, and it’s my sister so you better make up a pretty great excuse on why you’re lagging behind on safety today!” Paul yelled practically spitting in Zander’s face as he held him against the stall door. Keeping him against the stall, Zander started to wiggle around trying to escape his bonds.

“Two people have already died we have five more left, don’t let another person die because of your greed and need for vengeance.” Zander said as put his hands on Paul’s arms, suddenly heating his hands up and burning him. Paul screamed and pulled his arms back as he let go and backed up.

He knew that the heat wouldn’t burn him, and it would only appear like he had hot hands. Luckily, his powers would be safe and no one would have to know in the end. Looking around he tried to see where the purple cloud went, it disappeared into thin air like a ghost.

“Feel lucky; don’t do that again or else only four will make it out of here.” Paul said as Zander pondered what was happening to the cloud. He needed to know, it was pushing him forward. The need for information was so strong and he wanted to fill that need.

“Ok, turn that around. Let’s talk about that cloud, there are five of us left. That should be enough brain power to figure out what is happening here, so any one have any base ideas?” Zander said pushing Paul aside as he walked over to the crowd and asked them what they were thinking.

“Well it appeared to disappear so maybe it’s like a ghost with a dimensional shifter or it went out of phase.” Greg suggested as he attempted to make sense of the situation with in his own mind. Everyone was racing and trying to figure out how to save them.

“No their would have to be some sort of mind in the station, something to control it. It would be big and obvious and you would have to notice a lot of people coming into to install it.” Adriano said butting in, knowing that situations like that use a lot of power.

“There would also be signal too, if it could get in we could send one out and that would negate the situation. What about supernatural situations, floating cloud does seem to be quite supernatural.” Zander asked as he realized that they would safer in a closed environment and decided to keep them in the bathroom.

“Ok, let’s all huddle in here the beast doesn’t seem to strike if we all stay in one place.” Patricia said as she pushed Paul and Adriano into the bathroom and decided to keep them all together. Looking around it seemed to be that there was nothing in the rest stop. For all appearances the place would have appeared empty and no one would have any reason to investigate.

“Ok, any ideas we need to deal with this thing or at least survive to a point where having the shades down will be strange and someone will investigate.” Zander said as he looked around searching for the source of the vapor cloud.

“How about instead we focus on the problem, you two seem to want to butt into everyone businesses. Instead of focusing on the real problem here, we need to find that thing surround it and kill it before it could do any more of what it did to us!” Paul yelled as he desired to make as much noise as possible. Zander groaned realizing that everyone was still thinking of a classical, a human threat something tangible.

“You can kill a think you can’t see and you can’t see a thing that will appear when you’re alone, and we can’t get to you before you die, but if you want to try that please do go ahead.” Zander said as he decided to taunt faith, push against Paul see how far he would go to prove himself right.

“No, I’ll go instead.” Greg said as he stood up. “Don’t feel bad if I die.” Greg said nothing as he decided to instead get ready to deal with the cloud. If he was quick enough he might have been able to engulf the cloud in an energy bubble that would hopefully trap it.

“You don’t have to do that, there can be other ways.” Patricia said as said as she tried to talk the man out of doing such an incredibly stupid but heroic thing.

“You’re going to let him die, I thought you said we would all survive.” Paul said trying to damage Zander further. “You’re the leader you should die before us.”

“Paul shut it, Zander, I think we should send you instead.” Patricia said as she looked at him with anger in her eyes knowing that he deserved it. He was evil, he cared more about screwing with Zander than his own sister’s death and that was true evil.

“No, I have nothing to live for. Not a family, not a job, not money, I have nothing I won’t be missed.” Greg said hoping for nothing back as he left the confines of the women’s bathroom and walked across into the men’s, where he would be all alone. Zander stood mouth opened shocked as he witnessed the brave sacrifice that Greg was making.

Nobody made a sound as they waited for Greg to speak or scream, and they stood there all in silence everyone wondering how they could possibly repay the man.

“I can see it.” Greg said informing them that the bringer of death had arrived. “It’s large purple and vaporous. It’s like a cloud of death coming at me, I like it. It’s like fire, and ice burning at the heart of the sun, spinning so fast.” Greg said in amazement as he collected information on the killer cloud. Still everyone waited in silence, waiting for when it would be vulnerable.

“It stopped.” Greg said as he viewed the cloud, it wasn’t moving it was staying still in its tracks not moving but just keeping where it was.

“You are different than the rest you do not valve life or see it as anything important.” They all turned their heads as they heard another voice, something sounding like it was more of a collection of voices, all speaking at once. Zander walked out and prepared the energy shield.

“I have no reason to valve it, death has been a staple in my life. It follows me like a ghost, everyone I meet dying horrible deaths, so I would like to complete that circle as well.” Greg said as he made up his mind, how he was happy to end his miserable life on the Earth and hopefully elevate to a higher point.

“If you wish, I can spare your life and let you find time to valve it.” The cloud said, points in its body glowing as it spoke to the man. Greg smiled and nodded his head. The cloud continued its path forward.

“When I am dead no one here will miss me on this plane of existence. I will simply move on to a hopefully better one. I work in IT all day, and I wish I could have done better.” Greg said as with open arms he walked into the cloud. He smiled and breathed in its gases. With one last breath he sighed, instead of the others and his eyes closed.

Zander had enough and finally he ran forward with his hands extended out as ran at the gas. As it let Greg go, Zander grabbed it with his hands and enclosed it in a ball of energy. It formed quickly and the gas was trapped, it didn’t disappear into thin air or anything it just stayed like it was being commanded.

Zander looked around and Adriano shrugged, he had no idea what to do with the gas now. It didn’t look like it could escape or that it wanted to, nor did it look like it was going to escape. It just floated there, only moving with the move of the energy ball.

“Now then gentlemen, good game I hope this teaches you a lesson.” Paul said as he walked out of the bathroom and grabbed the energy ball out of Zander’s hand. He looked at it and shook it, the gas turning off and falling to the bottom of the energy bubble.

“What do you mean, what are you talking about?” Patricia said as she was confused by Paul.

“Because a company hired me and I didn’t steal the van and go the camera less way because I stole it, it was so you couldn’t find out who I was working for.” Paul said as he turned evil, Zander realizing that someone had killed the multitude of people all for a test angered him further.

“Your van is outside, we can just look on the license plate.” Adriano said as suddenly there was an explosion. “And that was your van.”

“Exactly, now my company didn’t want you to live but I’ll have to make an executive decision. You two are a far greater liability than they think and liabilities must be eliminated.” Paul said as he squeezed the energy bubble and it popped.

The vapor reactivated, floating up as it targeted Zander. Before Zander could react the cloud disappeared once again into thin air. Zander stood in shook as the cloud appeared around his face, Patricia saw this and jumped on him putting herself into the cloud, saving him.

Zander tried to form another barrier but before it could Patricia expired, falling down with a scream. Zander realized there was no way out other than death and he decided to take his stand. He pointed his hand at Paul and fired an energy blast. He hated energy blasts they were far too easy to use and too care of problems to easily.

Paul saw the energy blast and didn’t react, throwing his body in the way as it hit his body and killed him quickly. The gas finally stopped as if it was connected to Paul’s mind and fell on the floor as a power of dust. Zander took a breath as he finally realized that it was all over.

The shutters raised and the doors made an unlocking sound and with that he realized that everyone did die. He promised to get them out but Regina, Greg, Paul and Patricia had all died, they started with seven and ended with two. A tear came to Zander’s eye.

“Such waste, such a terrible waste, there should have been another way.” Zander said as what had happened came to view. Adriano came up and hugged him, both knowing that there had been too many deaths that day.

…

Greg opened his eyes and wondered what the new life would be like. Looking around he found himself in his nightmare. There were filing cabinets and a desk with strange toys and pictures. Looking around at the plain colored wall, he looked out and was amazed at what he saw.

“Hello their Greg, now if I were a smart man I’d say you’re thinking that office life is your personal hell, but this is what hell offices look like.” A sharply dressed man, covered from head to toe in all sorts of shades of red said, extending his hand and shaking it with Greg’s. Greg gulped as he realized where he ended up.

“Are you the Devil?” Greg asked as he stood up trying to get a good view of the devil before him.

“Only my friends call me that, please call me Lucifer.” He said joking as he talked to Greg, opening a file cabinet and searching through it. “Now I don’t normally do personal introductions but, I have a personal mission for you. You see this is a third dimension that all souls come from and return too, reincarnation really, but we try to return them better.” Lucifer said as he jumped onto the cabinet and started to crawl along it, pulling it out as he crawled along it.

“Found it.” Lucifer said pulling out the file and snapping his fingers as the cabinet pulled itself back in. He held up the file and pulled it down, showing him the hell dimension.

“Hell is cracked?” Greg asked as he read the file.

“You see we’re going through a renovation, and hell has a few cracks in it. Demons are escaping, hell is cracking further, and the lawyers are hanging out with the robbers, it can’t be a good influence on them.” Lucifer said as he looked out the window and into the hell that he was running.

“Which?” Greg asked as he tried to get some explanation.

“Both.” Lucifer said sagging his head. “Now I have a deal for you, how would you like to be a demon hunter, comes with benefits and a stable 401k plan.”