Multi-Dimensional Merchant System

Oliver was on edge. Nothing had come out of the Rift in over an hour... But just being near the Rift left him with a feeling of unease. The fact that he could only watch it out of the corner of his eye, out of fear of the effect it had on his mind when he looked at it directly, only magnified the sensation.

Several times he thought he saw motion out of the corner of his eye, only for it to be a trick of the shifting internal light of the Rift... And, for a moment, he wondered if there was some intelligence behind it. Did the Rift's light move and change deliberately to attract the gaze? It was almost like a psychic attack every time he looked at it...

Or was it just a side effect of the unnatural aperture?

He wasn't sure that he was ready for answers to those questions... Or that he even wanted them...

Oliver shook off the stray thoughts to refocus on what mattered- getting the job done. He was here to secure the Rift and keep the creatures from coming through, and that's what he intended to do. And while he could accomplish that by just waiting here and killing anything that came out... He wanted a better way. An easier way.

He was just struggling to find one.

Oliver stood near the doorway he came in through, and looked around the gym as he considered the problem. His eyes skittered uneasily past the Rift which sat directly in front of him, dead center of the basketball court with nothing but open floor for dozens of feet around it. To his left and right were rows of bleachers littered with dust from years of disuse. On the wall opposite, he saw a pair of doors, one at each end of the gym, with faded sides clearly labeling them as locker rooms.

None of which helped him with his task. Even the offices and classrooms he had passed lacked any sort of furniture.

“A couple of desks would have been nice... Just set them up as a crude barricade around the Rift to slow the fuckers down some...Maybe I should start carrying cinder blocks in the warehouse. Or, better yet, lumber. I've already got tools, and some nails left from commissions, so I could have just built something to-” He muttered to himself in frustration before pausing, and idea quickly forming.

With one more glance at the Rift, he hurried out of the gym and back down the hall. Pulling his tool kit out of the warehouse, he grinned as he snatched up the screwdriver and got to work.

The doors may be old, but they were still solid.

It was the work of only a minute before he had the first door off its hinges and was hustling it back to the gym. His gaze swept across the room quickly to be sure nothing had come through in his short absence, and he dropped the door near the Rift before hurrying back for another. Back and forth he went, always double checking that the gym was still empty between trips, until he had eight doors laid out before the twisted portal.

Pulling the hammer and nails from the warehouse, he froze in place as a sound echoed down the hall to him. Ears straining to make out what had caught his attention, he cursed softly when realization struck him-voices!

Someone was coming, and he could just barely hear them talking softly.

Hastily tossing his tools back in the warehouse, he scurried over to the bleachers. Moving carefully, he clambered up them, every squeak and groan of the aged wood making him grimace. He had no idea who would be here, especially this late at night, but he definitely didn't want to draw their attention.

Perched at the top of the bleachers, near the door but out of direct line of sight, Oliver took slow, controlled breaths as he listened to the voices draw closer.

“-probably just teenagers.”

“If it was teenagers, why did they break the window out instead of in? And they would have used a brick or something to break it, but there wasn't one there.”

“Maybe they used a bat and took it with them?”

“I mean... Yeah, maybe. Still doesn't look right. We were told to check it out, so that's what we're doing. And don't forget that someone reported gunshots, so keep an eye out Ry.”

“Yeah, I hear you. But Lou already found shell casings at that house, so we know where the shooting happened. I wonder why that tar was all over everything... Man, it smelled like shit in there.”

Oliver cursed silently to himself. How could he forget to clean up after himself like that? Yeah, he was more than a little thrown off after fighting a monster that easily qualified as nightmare fuel. But that was just sloppy and he knew it.

At least he always wore gloves when handling his guns and ammo so he wouldn't leave any fingerprints... Though, now that he thought about it, he had gotten the ammo from those racist assholes he had killed... And he doubted they had worn gloves when handling anything. The thought of all this being linked to some dead hate group multiple states away was almost funny... But it would definitely raise a lot of questions.

At least none of it would lead to him, he consoled himself.

The voices trailed off, and their footsteps stopped, outside the gym door. Oliver imagined they were looking over the shattered remains of the door-which was quickly confirmed by the talkative one of the pair.

“What the hell? I don't think some kids did this, Beau. Maybe some junkie, high out of his mind...”

The crunch of boots on the broken wood signaled the pairs cautious advance. Oliver leaned out just enough to watch as two uniformed men crossed the threshold into the room. He couldn't make out much about them in the dim light of the gym aside from them both being a bit older. The closer of the two was a heavier white man with a slight hunch to his back, while the his partner was a thin black man. Oliver immediately pegged the black officer as the serious one, Beau, as he was the one with his gun already in hand and ready.

But, after taking just one step into the room, both men froze and stared in horror.

Oliver knew it was because of the Rift, but still it confused him. The gym was at the end of the hall. They should have seen the glowing purple hole in reality from much further back... But, he quickly realized, he hadn't noticed the Rift until after he entered the gym himself...

He cursed quietly, knowing the effect it was having on them. He knew that if he did nothing, the cops would suffer-and possibly go insane. Or die, for all he really knew about the situation.

And, while he didn't want to get mixed up with the police- especially when he had no idea how long this job would take, he knew he couldn't just leave them to whatever torment this unnatural thing was causing.

Plus, if they just went missing then other police would come searching for them.

Jumping down from the bleachers, Oliver didn't hesitate. With a single hand to each of their chest, he roughly shoved them back out the door. While the one he thought was 'Ry' tumbled to the floor where he curled up and began to sob, Beau simply staggered back several steps before steadying himself against the wall.

Oliver was actually impressed with how quickly the man recovered as, after shaking his head roughly, the officer's eyes cleared and his gun snapped up to point at Oliver.

“H-hands where I can see them!” Beau exclaimed with only a slight tremor in his voice.

'Pretty impressive Willpower.' Oliver thought to himself, before an idle thought flitted through his mind. 'Is it Willpower that helps resist it? Or does Spirit play into it somewhere?'

Pushing those questions to the back of his mind, Oliver slowly raised his hands and refocused on his current problem. He couldn't allow the officers to come back in, as that likely wouldn't end well for them. But he also doubted he could easily put them off, especially after what they had just seen... And, while one of them had clearly been taken out by the effects of the Rift, the other was most likely going to be a problem...

What the hell could he say to regain control of the situation? Not only had this officer just seen something straight out of a nightmare, but now he was facing down a masked man in black clothing... But a masked man was something he had been trained for, and something he could focus on rather than thinking about the thing he had just seen...

“Get down on the ground. Now! Do it slowly!” Beau huffed out between panted breaths.

Hands still raised, Oliver sighed softly at the mess he was in. “Sorry Officer. I know you've got a job to do, but so do I. And that-” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder slowly. “-is my job.”

Beau's flinch and shaking hands made Oliver tense, worried he was about to be shot again. Slowly the officer's hands steadied, but Oliver spoke on before the man could try to reassert his authority. “No, don't argue. You saw it; It's real. And it's not something you, or your department, can handle. What you need to do-”

His words were interrupted by a hellish screech, one which Oliver instantly recognized.

Another creature was coming through the Rift, and the timing couldn't be worse. He hadn't finished his little improvised barrier and he still had the cops to deal with.

'And protect.' He amended to himself with a glance at the one sobbing on the floor.

“Fuck me...”