Wherein we meet our...rather unlikely...hero, Gumbo.
The section of floor next to Gumbo's head literally exploded.
Of course, if the Gree-Gree had not been flat of his back holding his chest and groaning, his head would not have been so close to the floor; but Gumbo didn't think it would've really mattered. The bone snapper wasn't really aiming for the floor...
The undead brute bellowed, dragging his wrecking-ball arms back up out of the smoking crater it'd just created. The creature's arms were really that in name only: thick columns of twisted cords of root-like muscle that did not end in hands but instead coiled around whatever the creature liked. Usually heavy, hard things like gravestones, rocks, or iron girders that the mindless beast then used to beat the crap out of whatever it could target... The thing was a nightmarish marionette: its milky eyes blinking repeatedly and its head jerking awkwardly atop its ram-rod neck. Gumbo knew it were listening intently.
"I guess dat dere spell I's done laid on yous ain't quite worn down yet, eh?" Gumbo spat, rolling into the newly-created gaping chasm to his right. Just as he'd suspected, the bone snapper slammed its anvil-like hands down on the spot where he'd been mere seconds ago. The wooden floor whined and groaned from the battering.
'I gots to get outta heres, and fast-like...', Gumbo thought to himself, crouching in the cramped space. He peered into the dusty darkness beneath the ancient church's floorboards. The Gree-Gree knew he was running out of time. The blindness he'd inflicted upon the hulking undead engine-of-destruction would not last much longer. He had to get out from beneath the ancient church, past the bone snapper and back into the graveyard. If he could not get his slimy hands on that chalice, he wasn't getting paid. "And dat won't be no good, now, mon ami...", he mumbled.
Gumbo spat a curse and dove.
The floor - currently the ceiling to Gumbo - erupted into a rain of splinters, dust and dirt. The bone snapper was done waiting - it started swinging for the rails. It planted its feet on the cold, once-sacred ground and started whirling both arms like two wrecking machines gone berserk. Like an undead hurricane, the creature began tearing up the floor around it in ever-widening circles.
Gumbo thumbed the tab on a smoke grenade and rolled it towards the enraged bone snapper - the Gree-Gree could feel a couple of ribs grating on one another as he did so and sucked in a sharp breath. The grenade went off, hissing like a sack of pissed-off snakes and spewed thick green smoke that swirled around the undead creature in the wake of its titanic thrashing. The bone snapper roared in response and reacted instinctively to the sound, pummeling the area around the noisy weapon. Gumbo gritted his shark-like teeth and scrabbled up and onto the floorboards, making a bee-line for his weapon.
But bad things always happen to Gumbo.
The Gree-Gree tripped on the spur of oddly crossed piece of metal lying on the floor and went down in a heap. One of his ribs, broken from a bone snapper sucker punch, popped through Gumbo's slick skin in a fountain of gore. He could not help but to scream. The bone snapper, now finished killing the grenade, jerked towards the sound like a puppet on a string; it swung blindly. A piece of concrete - complete with bent and rusted re-bar, wrapped in undead bone snapper flesh - slammed into Gumbo. The Gree-Gree's world swam as he skidded nearly twelve feet across the debris-littered floor. He came to a stop against something metallic and cool. Gumbo's yellow reptilian eyes fluttered for a moment and then focused on the item.
The Gree-Gree smiled. Sometimes, good things happen to Gumbo.
The bone snapper struck again, this time with its headstone fist - a large "R.I.P." ironically peeking out from around its putrid root-fingers. The thing's last blow, however, had driven its prey outside of the range that it could reach.
"Too far, mon ennemi. You's arms be not long 'nuff to hit me.", Gumbo gargled through a mouth full of blood. The bone snapper, for the moment, was caught within a trap of its own making: buried thigh-deep in the wooden fallout of its own fury. The Gree-Gree drug his broken body up and shouldered the metallic item from the floor - his trusty NAU Glue Gun; the one he'd "found" the last time he'd "passed through" Outpost FLW. He could hear the retro-fitted Pow-R-Gen Module he'd installed HUMMMmm to life as it recognized his bio-signature. Gumbo curled his long, clawed index finger around the trigger and smiled his shark-toothed smile. "Too far, mon ennemi, and no's further yous go."
The undead monster screamed - a horrible, hollow-throated sound - as the weapon fired, coating its form and the detritus around it in a slick coating of thick, foamy, quickly-hardening glue.
"Dat'll hold yous...", Gumbo spat weakly, nearly spent. "While I's be gettin' dat chalice." The Gree-Gree turned on a heel to leave. If he could only hold out until he nabbed the chalice from the bone-snapper's mausoleum and got back to his swamp-bike, then he thought he'd be okay. He'd need to hole up for a while, rest and recoup before seeing Wormsloe, but he thought he could still make the deadline.
But bad things always happen to Gumbo.
A thoroughly unexpected sound stopped the crafty Gree-Gree in his tracks. It was a sound that sent shivers down Gumbo's spine, and truth be told, the slimy character had seen and dealt with alot during his time. Gumbo glanced over his shoulder with the resolution of one who's pretty sure he's about to meet his maker.
The bone snapper was laughing.
It was a tiny laugh. Not tiny in volume or quality of sound - just the opposite, it was fairly loud and came from deep within the nasty creature's barrel chest. But it was a tiny laugh - the kind of sound like a mischievous child might make when they think they've pulled one over on you. The sound, in conjunction with the bone snapper's eyes, froze Gumbo's breath in his throat.
They were as clear as crystal.
"I....see.....you."
Suddenly, the bone snapper struck, flinging its "R.I.P" fist towards the Gree-Gree. Gumbo knew it would miss and didn't even bother to brace himself. At the point when the arm should have stopped, however, something horrible and thoroughly unexpected happened - the arm just kept going. It was as if the creature's strange, inhuman limb had suddenly become elastic and was stretching far beyond its former range!
The last image Gumbo saw before the world went black was a massive headstone, with the letters "R.I.P" emblazoned in stunning bas relief.
Bad things always happen to Gumbo...