All Outta Tea: Part III

To outsiders, the small British village of Glumleigh, West Yorkshire, may seem to be a dank, grey place of mediocrity, where its meagre population survive the way their ancestors had always done, tolling the harsh lands and rearing their livestock. But behind closed doors, when nights draw dark, and storms fill the skies, and winds blow with such a chill that they rattle your very bones, you may perchance hear a couple of old dears tell the tale of the young writer Henry Gelson, and the mysterious circumstances of his disappearance.

In part two of this spine chilling tale Henry was confronted by a murderous cult of old aged pensioners led by The Reverend Dudley Harrison. Henry was left with no choice but to defined himself against his elderly assailants while his childhood home burned around him.

Will Henry make it out of the cottage alive, or will he meet the same fate as his parents? Join us, ye intrepid Sega Addicts, as we present the third part of this shocking tale of one man’s struggle to retain his sanity in the fight for Mega Drive. Hit the jump to read on but be warned, to wash these bloodstains from your clothes will take ages.

Disclaimer: The following story contains levels of gore some may find offensive. This story is not affiliated with Sega, and for the most part doesn’t have anything to do with Sega.

 

The Reverend had already made it through and had closed the window by the time Henry was done wiping the blood from his face. He was absolutely covered in the stuff. The flames had taken a hold of the entire room and beyond. He could barley see the door to the hallway through the smoke.

“The loft..!” He coughed, the smoke filling his aching lungs. “Huh, I guess there’s only one thing to do in a situation like this”

He held the chainsaw above his head and slammed the end down into the floor. The tip of the chainsaw broke through the floorboards underneath the carpet, holding it in place. He jumped on top of the engine, put on some shades that he happened to have in his pocket and revved the chainsaw to that max, sending the chainsaw speeding across the room like a deadly one-wheeled motorbike.

The doorway to the hallway was engulfed in flames, so naturally Henry drove his chainsaw motorbike of doom up the wall and along the ceiling. He hung on to the engine handle like a professional gibbon as he flew past the flames. Once in the hallway Henry noticed that the front door had been battered open, and a group of three more robed fogies were gingerly making their way into the burning house. When they saw Henry hanging onto his chainsaw however, they turned to run back.

Henry tugged at the chainsaw, pulling it out of the ceiling and landing it straight on top of the first pensioner’s head where he proceeded to pogo-stick his way through his body. The two other men looked on in horror as the chainsaw made it’s way through their friend from head to toe, throwing chunks of meat of their way.

The second man got a Flash Kick Chainsaw Backflip™ to the groin area, cutting him clean in half from the bottom up. His two halves span around in circles, propelled by the blood gushing from them while spasming like floppy fish.

The last fellow, who had, quite frankly, found the events of that evening quite shocking, had fallen onto his front while trying to flee. Henry took advantage of the situation by bunny-hopping his chainsaw through his back and into the floor. He rode around the hallway, giggling at the old man as he failed his arms and legs about in an attempt to wriggle himself off the chainsaw.

“Ease up boy, this ain’t all that comfortable if I’m to be quite honest with ye!” The man shouted up at Henry through mouthfuls of carpet.

Henry paid no attention and steered the chainsaw up the stairs, trying not to piss himself with laughter as the old man’s head made a comical “Bonk!” as it hit every step. Once at the top he dismounted from his steed and grabbed the cord that opened the hatch to the loft.

“By gum! Would’ve thunk t’chainsaw would be just what this ol’ back o’ mine needed! Ta!” said the old man before exploding.

***

The sloping walls of the loft were lined with posters of old video game characters, each illuminated by blue neon lights. The lights were the the shape of arrows, all pointing towards the other end of the loft at the front of the house. At was at this moment that Henry realised that he had never once set foot in the area of the house before.

He peered through the rising smoke in the direction of the arrows, and there, at the end of the loft, was a Sega Mega Drive and an ancient looking cathode ray tube television standing on a marble pedestal. It sat beneath a small window which, despite the billowing snow outside, allowed moon light to shine through giving the old games console an air of divinity.

Mesmerized, Henry shuffled slowly towards the console as if drawn to it by some unseen cosmic energy. As he stepped closer, he noticed that the posters on the all were being replaced first by old tapestries, then older mosaics, followed by slabs of stone with rudimentary figures carved into them. One of the tapestries depicted a creature not unlike a court jester soaring over what seemed to be a small village, leaving black snow flakes in its wake. The adults of the village knelt with by the sides of the children, all of which were lying outside with disturbingly blank faces.

Another, an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph, showed a Pharaoh bowing down in front of a man wearing modern clothing and carrying what looked like a huge cannon under his arm. The man seemed human, yet was hovering a foot from the ground and had a sickening grin on his face. Behind him fields of crops burnt and livestock lay dead on the ground.

Finally Henry was looking directly at the Mega Drive. He had always wanted one as a child after seeing the adverts on the television and hearing the stories told by children in the playground more fortunate than he. His parents had always denied him one for the longest of time, always telling him that such things were too addictive, too overwhelming for the mind of a child. He had assumed they simply didn’t want any distractions between him and his chores in the house and on the farm. But now, as he stared at the slick, black games machine in front of him, the walls of reality itself seemed to crumble away. He ran a finger over the inserted cartridge. ‘Ages 2500’ read the sticker label. On the front was a picture of one great, white eye with two black pupils against a a background of television static.

He sat down in front of the console. He picked up the controller, feeling the weight of it in his hands. It wasn’t until this very moment that he realised how badly he needed this. He had bought consoles once he moved to the city, but none satisfied the curiosity he had always had for the Mega Drive. His body tired, and his mind crashing from the fading adrenaline, time no longer mattered for him. The house was bound to collapse at any minute from the raging fire down below, but Henry simply didn’t care, he only wanted to play. Just then, a heavy hand landed on his shoulder.

“Henry please. Put the controller down. We needn’t see any more death tonight.”

Henry slowly turned around to see The Reverend standing there, breathing heavily. His robe was nothing more than a few scraps of cloth burnt away from the fire down below. His skin was red and sore in many places, his eyes bloodshot from the smoke. He looked afraid.

“Please. It doesn’t have to be this way. Come with me and we’ll take care of everything for you.” The Reverend pleaded.

“What… What are you on about Rev? I just want to play, and you just want to kill me. I don’t even know why. I don’t even care.”

“We’re here to save humanity Henry. You should know that. How could you not? It’s why we had to kidnap your father. It’s why we had to poison your mother. They are not of this world. They seek to bring about 2,500 years of neon blue darkness.”

“And who am I then, Fungus the fucking Bogeyman? I don’t care about my parents. I don’t care about you. Let me play.”

“You mean you really don’t know..?”

“No Rev, I don’t know. I don’t fucking know anything any more so won’t you please piss off and let me play!”

Henry flicked the ‘On’ switch. A intense, red laser shot out of the LED lamp on the console and blew a hole through the roof. Both of the men looked up in awe as the clouds parted around the laser, clearly showing it’s path up into the full moon. Slowly, the white glow of the moon shifter to a shade of pink, then to scarlet, and finally to a deep maroon. The house started to vibrate vigorously and outside the screams of the remaining elderly men and women fleeing the area echoed up into the loft. It was the emerging image on the television, however, that had both men really concerned.

About the author

Michael Westgarth

Michael Westgarth is a freelance writer and geneticist for hire who has been writing about video games since 2011. Michael enjoys saving the world and building creeper-proof, vertical sheep farms. Follow him on Twitter @MegaWestgarth, Tumblr and Google+.