Chapter 343: Friendship and Fallout
To say that the people who knew Dean were surprised would be an understatement. Even Lyssa’s bandmates were in shock knowing that this guy who had sung on stage with them was now some sort of blood covered killer.
Their reactions, as crazy as they were, could be considered calm compared to his buddies Mike, Jason, Warren and Stevo.
"Holy fuck man... holy fuck... is this the same guy who couldn’t even find it within himself to bang a chick?" Stevo shouted, way louder than he had intended. Of course this was the first thing that came to his mind.
"Dude... that ain’t funny. My boy’s got some blood all over himself... he could use a shower..." Jason muttered, not even able to process what was actually happening.
Warren was just slacked jawed and wide eyed, not able to speak.
Only Mike calmly put down his gun and walked over, looking Laz up and down with a face of shock, surprise and something that Laz could only consider to be like ’I knew it.’
Lyssa made her way over to her bandmates and manager while everyone else, seeing it was a human, lowered their guns. A few of the braver ones even managed to find the will power to go and check out the hall where they saw Death and War walk in.
Strangely enough, despite being covered in blood, they still both looked drop dead gorgeous. Only now, it was in a perverse and haunted sort of way. When they walked in, they drew the eyes of everyone in the room. The two women didn’t take it to heart though and simply walked over, grabbed a few towels and began to clean themselves as best they could. Ironically, their bodies had been wet before thanks to the rain so once that mixed with the blood, it ended up looking they were covered in a red watercolor dye at most.
"You ok bro?" Mike asked, his face finally settling on concerned.
"Yeah," Laz responded, checking out his buddies reaction.
"So... you figured things out?" Mike then said, with a glint in his eye.
"Yeah."
"Alright. My name’s Mike," he said with a grin and held out his hand.
"Name’s Lazarus. But everyone just call’s me Laz," Laz responded back, shaking his hand with a firm grip.
"So where did you come up with the name Dean? I mean, you had lost your memory and I know you had been seeing about any reports about a guy named Dean going missing and stuff." Mike didn’t doubt that Laz had truly believed his name was Dean. He had seen him trying to find out about his past multiple times over the last year. Only now did Mike understand that they were totally looking for the wrong person.
"Well... If I’m being honest... it’s cause I thought my fake Texas Id was my real one."
"Ah... well that explains the Northern accent. No one who grew up in the south talks like that."
"Yeah... New York actually. Well... for a time. And before that... on the road a whole lot so even I don’t know where I was born."
"Ha. I would love to hear your stories sometime... but before that... who are the hotties and why do I feel like I should call them mommy and expect to get my ass whipped?" Mike said, looking at War and Death.
"Well... uh.... How do I say this?" Laz wasn’t really sure how to explain their relationship to himself since he had never thought about it before and they had never expressed an opinion.
"He is our master!" They both said without a second thought or a hint of shame. In response, Mike just froze on the spot while Jason, Stevo and Warren acted in the same way.
"HOW THE FUCK? AND WHY YOU? WHY THE HELL YOU?"
The accusations flew at Laz just as soon as their brains caught up to the realization. Or, at least, what they thought that meant in their heads. After all, BDSM isn’t just a niche kink anymore so hearing someone call someone else their master is obviously BDSM based.
Of course, just because they were going to go off the rails, that didn’t mean that everyone else was focused on that. In fact, while they had been talking others had been discussing the situation as well.
"How did they get in here without weapons?"
"And why are they covered in blood?"
"You don’t think they are those... do you?"
"They must be... and we have to be careful. What do we do?"
"Even if they came to help us, they can’t be trusted. I know that guy, but to think that he hid himself so deeply... don’t they screen them at the time of hiring? Someone fucked up somewhere. Either way, get yourselves ready. We just need to confront him and those two behind him and go from there. But no sudden movements. They are obviously dangerous and we don’t want to endanger the others. Everyone check your ammo first." The person who finally gave out the orders was the only surviving member of the security team, the other one having been killed while defending the door.
Despite their whispered voices though, Laz, Death and War heard everything they said. Laz had a feeling he knew what was going to happen next.
"Excuse me. Dean? Could we speak to you for a moment?" The security guard said, his gun was strapped over his shoulder and the barrel was pointed at the floor, but his hand was still on the grip and the safety was off. They hadn’t seen how the beasts outside had been taken care of so as not to alarm Laz, they decided to keep things looking calm. Had they seen the way they fought, they never would have been so relaxed.
"Why? You already know the answer so why do you think we should talk quietly?" Laz turned to him with a grin, interested in what would happen next.
For Death and War, they were a little surprised by Laz’s straightforward admission, but since they knew he had gone through a lot, they didn’t think much of it.
For Mike, Stevo, Jason and Warren though, this kind of arrogance wasn’t what they were used to. Even if someone had known from before the memory loss, they wouldn’t expect him to be that forward.
For Laz though, having the memories from before come back along with the ones he gained over the last year made it feel like he had lived two lives. That kind of brain shock had altered him in ways he didn’t clearly know, but that it would be impossible for him to separate his personalities anymore. And with everything that was currently going on, Laz just felt like he didn’t really give a fuck anymore and thought he should just go forward with being totally honest from now on. After all, he had already wasted so much time.
The guard raised the gun at Laz who simply stood there and smiled. Seeing the situation, the others chose to trust security and also raised their rifles. While Laz showed no outward sign of anger, the same couldn’t be said about War and Death who immediately glared at the aggressors. If it wasn’t for Laz’s lack of concern, they would have already taken out their weapons and went on a killing spree against these idiots.
But Laz knew that not everyone would be against them in this.
"What the hell are you doing?" Manager May, seeing what was happening, walked over to confront the men.
"Stand back. This guy here is one of those infected that we were warned about. We need to keep them away from everyone and call the police..."
"CALL THE POLICE? HOW THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THEY WILL GET HERE WHEN EVEN THE MILITARY ISN’T HERE YET?" She yelled, wondering just how stupid these men were. In her mind, she didn’t doubt that Laz was an infected. In fact, from the moment she walked in, she understood that he wasn’t normal by any means. But even still, he had saved their lives, if only for the moment. If they had been trapped here for so long and no other help had come for them, then the situation in the entire club must be about the same as them which means no one would be able to call out. And even if they did, how were the police suppose to help when the military were the only ones qualified to deal with the creatures outside?
Obviously these people were ignorant as well as being idiots. Or maybe they had just been brainwashed over the past few years.
As for Laz, as far as she could see, he was their best hope of survival no matter what he was.
While some of the smarter ones understood what she was saying, they still had an innate fear of the infected, having been long convinced by the lies they had been fed.
Just as Mike was about to jump in to help and Lyssa was going to come back and yell, Laz waved his hand at them to tell them to back off, at least for now.
"So as far as all of you are concerned, I’m the bad guy?" Laz asked, calmly.
"You’re the freak of nature that’s making all of this shit happen asshole," the guard replied back, accusingly.
"And you’re expecting to be saved? By who? obviously you can’t save yourselves. If we hadn’t shown up when we did, you all would have been killed. Or did I see things wrong?" Laz didn’t respond to the provocation and just kept things going.
"Better to be killed than being helped by shit like you who will kill us yourselves for your own enjoyment." It was now obvious to those in the room, guests and staff alike that this man had been completely brainwashed into this opinion. For many of the others gathered, they had watched many videos and seen many different sites that had proven that this line of thinking was nothing but propogandist bullshit. Afterall, no matter how big the government, it was impossible to completely control all the information on things affecting the whole world.
"So you’d rather be killed and let everyone else in this room die than to even think about trusting me huh? Well, that kind of sucks since there are people here I want to save and I don’t have time for your bullshit. Hmm... I guess I will just help those who wish to be helped and everyone else can stay here with you. How’s that sound?" Laz asked.
"You think I’m letting you walk out those doors with these people you fucking diseased piece of shit?"
"Well. Let’s see. If I want to leave, I don’t think you’re going to be able to stop me. And if you decided to try to threaten anyone who wants to come with me or god forbid stop the,, then I’m going to have to kill you along with anyone else dumb enough to follow you. How about that?" Laz was still smiling, but now the smile had a touch of ice and anger to it. It was faint, but even that little bit directed at this normal human was enough to make him shake from the pressure. He didn’t dare pull the trigger now and even the barrel of the gun started to drop.
Just as Laz turned to walk over to Lyssa and her group, one of the men behind the guard decided he wasn’t just going to let this freak walk away. And since the guard wasn’t doing anything now, apparently having lost his nerve, that man decided he would act first and pulled the trigger, the bullet aimed right at Laz’s head.
Laz had figured that a free pass to leave wasn’t likely so as soon as he sensed the trigger being pulled, he moved his head having figured out the trajectory of the bullet and dodged it right in front of everyone’s eyes.
Just as they were frozen in place at the shocking scene of a man dodging a bullet from point blank range, Laz disappeared from view and reappeared in the blink of an eye, standing behind the man who couldn’t believe he had missed. Laz calmly set his hand on the man’s shoulder and a small wisp of black flames traveled downward, straight into his heart and melting it clean away in a bust of tightly controlled flames. The man dropped dead in a second, never having felt anything.
As for everyone watching, they didn’t even see what happened. They just saw Laz vanish, appear behind the man who fired, touch his shoulder, then drop dead. Laz then vanished again and appeared right where he was standing before and calmly walked over like nothing had happened.
Even with the pouring rain, stifling thunder and heavy beating of hearts and intakes of breath, the room was so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop as everyone stared on in shock and horror.
