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Old 02-24-2017, 05:08 AM   #18
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default In the Lair of the Minotard

Barrelling down the corridor, Taylor pin-pointed the noises coming from a side room off the main tunnel. Before he reaches the room, he can hear another desperate scream tearing a man's throat raw and in counterpoint, a heavy grunt of exertion as air is expelled from huge lungs and a faint, but ugly sound of ripping cartilege.

As Taylor runs into the room, he can see a hulking figure looming over a kneeling man in the remnants of a guard uniform, in the process of ripping his arm out of the socket with one misshapen hand.

In outward form, the standing figure somewhat resembles a man, but it seems to be over seven feet and must weigh well over four hundred pounds. It's naked, with skin that's a mass of scar tissue with clumps of hair standing out, and a massive, pendulous sex organ leaves no doubt of its sex. The right arm is considerably more massive than the left and the left shoulder is lumpen and ugly, probably the result of a poorly healed break. Embedded in its chest is a yellow fingernail, surrounded by an angry red welt and suppurating pus. In its left hand it's holding a section of pipe that must weigh over twenty pounds.

Displaying both the ferocious aggression that made him the leading pass rusher for the Luverne Tigers in high school and the total lack of introspection in the face of adverse physical reality that led an instructor at Fort Benning to declare that he was one boot who'd end up jumping without a parachute because the ground ----ed him off, Taylor lowered his shoulder and charged in. It looked something like a terrier charging a fighting bull. Taylor tried to lead with the metal bar he'd scrounged, aiming for the wrist to break the beast's grip on his victim, but when the hulking thing turned to face him, Taylor ended up hitting it square in the left leg.

The impact hurt the 165 pound Taylor far more than his almost three times bigger foe. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder and side, Taylor swung his improvised metal club for the wrist holding the sobbing man's arm and raked the left shin of the beast with his shoe before sideslipping. Neither attack seemed to faze the huge thing, no more than the initial slam had. The beast evidently decided that its limp victim was an obstacle to properly dealing with the annoying interruption and threw the injured man one-handed at its quick-stepping adversary before winding up for a brutal blow with the pipe.

Taylor caught the wounded man in his arms and stepped back with him, dodging a savage swipe from the beast before gently lowering the wounded man down to the ground. While still crouched over the wounded man, Taylor managed to use his metal bar to deflect an overhead blow that would have driven his head into his stomach and move a step to the right. To make sure that the beast remained focused on him and not its wounded victim, Taylor kicked again at the point on its shin where he'd raked it earlier and hit it hard in the forehead with the bent metal pipe. The swift kick told somewhat, but the metal bar just bounced off the thick skull.

Falling back for the door now that the beast was focused on him, Taylor parried another massive swing and counterattacked with another kick for the same spot on the left shin. This time, the huge leg buckled and the beast crumbled down mid-step, falling toward Taylor and the door while grasping for hold with its right hand. Taylor brought his metal bar down on the right wrist of the man-beast, snapping the wrist with an audible crack. Before the hulking thing has finished falling, Taylor hooks the left, weapon-bearing, arm using his bent metal bar as leverage. Using that leverage, Taylor aims a fight-ending stamp kick at the weak point in the side of the man-beast's skull.

A flash of light distracts him and Taylor ends up stamping the ground right in front of the hulking thing's face, awkwardly falling against the door frame as he does so. Looking up, he sees Dr. Anderson holding up his hand to him: "Stop!" When Taylor recovers his balance, he steps out of the room and looks closely as his fallen foe. It's still massive, ugly and terrifying, breathing like a bellows, but the roars have turned to a strange whimpering keening.

Taylor: "What in the Lord's name is that, Doc?"
Dr. Anderson: "That's Terry Amiti. Terry used to be a patient here. Orphan, from rather sad circumstances. Severe developmental retardation. He had the mind of a child, but when vexed, could become dangerous. He never knew his own strength or understood that he could hurt people with it. I thought he had been transfered, but obviously, something bad has happened to him since I knew him."
Col. Burr: "Something bad? He was eating people!"
Dr. Anderson [musingly]: "Dr. Vanderbert was his primary physician. He was quite pleased with Terry's response to experimental treatment, but then one day, Terry apparently had a bad reaction to his meds and Dr. Vanderbert said he'd been transfered. Understand, I was never involved in his treatment and know only what I heard in the caffeteria. I am quite sure, however, that Terry was not here at Manhanock Asylum for the last few months I spent here. He must have come back here at some later date."
Taylor: "This is a person?"
Dr. Anderson: "Oh, yes. Terry could be sweet and affectionate, even, if treated right. He is quite blameless for anything he might have done. He has never understood consequences on any meaningful level and is incapable of making a moral choice, all the more so now, it seems."

Dr. Anderson touches Terry gently and whispers soothing encouragement to him, trying to ascertain the extent of his injuries without provoking destructive rage. Meanwhile, Taylor leaps over the prone Terry to check on the man that Terry was attacking. He discovers that the shoulder is badly dislocated, but is unable to tell whether there is a fracture. There is some minor bleeding where Terry's fingernails broke through the skin on the lower neck and shoulder, but while that might lead to infection later, that injury is of minor concern in the short term. There is widespread bruising on the face and side, but Taylor hopes that no ribs are broken.

Once Taylor has made sure that the injured guard is as comfortable as he can make him on the floor, he moves to help Dr. Anderson treat Terry. Taylor immobilises the unharmed left arm with a knee and holds the right arm gently while Dr. Anderson splints it. Sherilyn Bell moves over to assist without being asked, but pointedly hands Dr. Anderson improvised bandages and splints with overdone flirtatious 'Hello Nurse' mannerisms while ignoring Taylor.

Dr. Anderson: "I understand we cannot take him with us."
Taylor: "Unfortunately, there's no way we could carry him. We'll have to drag him back inside and make him as comfortable as we can in here. We'll come back for him once we've called for help."
O'Toole: "What's wrong with you, man? You were trying your best to kill it a moment ago, now you act like you're sorry you broke the monstrous cannibal's wrist."
Taylor: "He were a threat a moment ago, O'Toole. Now he ain't nothing but a hurt innocent who don't even understand why he's hurting."

Dr. Anderson and Taylor drag the massive form of Terry back inside the room and try to make a bed for him as best they can from what they find in the room. They also try as they can to discourage him from moving, as the leg might be broken. They then carry the man in the guard uniform out to the corridor. The man seems to be mercifully unconscious* and Taylor seizes the moment to set his arm before applying an improvised splint. Then O'Toole, Burr and Taylor do what they can to block the door to Terry's room, to reduce the odds he'll move and hurt himself or someone else.

Taylor [to O'Toole]: "Still think there's innocents among the guards hunting us? They the ones who locked a poor idiot in the tunnels, calling him a monster and making him kill anyone who resists for them. Y'all think there's any guards upstairs don't know what's going on?"

There are no objections when it becomes clear that the unconscious guard is to be added to the crowd of survivors we carry along, though both Col. Burr, who is carrying an unconscious orderly and Agent O'Toole, who has to carry the new survivor, glare at Taylor's back when he moves back into a point position, unencumbered by any of our wounded captives/rescues.

*Dr. Dreamweaver, again. He really should have skipped psychiatry and gone into anaesthesiology. He'd have made bank.
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Last edited by Icelander; 03-02-2017 at 09:31 AM.
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