Survivor- World of Monsters 2

by Michael Brightburn

  They really did need to step up their medical-supply game, and he really would do that if they made it out of this.

  Oh please, he thought, let us make it out of this.

  Time wore on. Sixty seconds, two minutes, three.

  After five, there was still nothing, no sign of the monster.

  “Maybe it ran off?” Eliza said hopefully.

  “Why would it do that?” Cal asked.

  “Well, we did just stab a spear down its throat and toss it off a cliff.”

  He chuckled, then shifted and pain shot up from his leg, ending his mirth.

  They had only a few spears left, both theirs and the natives, as well as the talon-spear which he now clutched across his lap, squeezing it hard to try to take the focus away from his leg.

  They also had bows.

  For which they had no arrows, unfortunately.

  There were plenty of them outside, but no one was going to risk going down and getting them, not with that thing possibly out there.

  Or could they?

  “Eliza,” Cal called. “Can you go down and collect the arrows we shot? If you transform into fire, it shouldn’t be able to harm you.”

  “How would I carry them?”

  Right. Damn. The pain was interfering with his ability to think clearly.

  “I could go as dirt, I guess…”

  “No,” Imogen said. “It’s not worth it. What good are arrows going to do anyway? The one who’s the crack shot is unconscious. I’m good, but not good enough to get a shot down its throat. Better to stick to spears.”

  “I wish I could shoot fireballs,” Eliza lamented, now standing at the edge of the hilltop and staring out at the forest, looking for the slightest signs of movement.

  “No use wishing for something we don’t have,” Imogen said. “Keep your eyes peeled.”

  “Oh I am.” She absently pet Rufus’s head, who was now cowered beside her.

  Cal again wondered if he really was just a puppy. If so, how much bigger would he get?

  They sat, listening to the stream, each other’s breaths, the breeze in the treetops, the wind rustling the canopy, the faint creaking sound their net made as the branches it was connected to swayed ever so slightly.

  The net. Cal looked up. “Hey, we still have a net.”

  All four conscious beings turned to look at him.

  He pointed up at the net leading from the front gate to the tree, the one the monster hadn’t crashed through. “We can toss it over it, then Eliza can shift to earth to pin it down. While it’s pinned, one of us can stab it with the spear again.”

  “That…” Imogen stared thoughtfully up at the net. “That could work. I don’t have any better ideas.” She looked to Eliza. “Think you can manage that? Holding it down?”

  Eliza shrugged. “I have no idea. Possibly.”

  She and Imogen quickly got to work taking the net they’d so recently put up back down.

  Perhaps sensing the distraction, the monster took this moment when they were occupied to strike.

  It suddenly came flying over the edge of the hilltop, landing just fifteen feet from where Imogen was pulling down the net, and just two feet from Cal.

  The alien female cried out and Rufus let out one of his rare barks.

  “Shit!” Cal yelped.

  The monster turned its head toward him, the last to make a noise, and lunged.

  65

  “Shit!” Cal cried out again, barely getting his talon-spear up in time.

  The monster’s long, blade-like limbs came down beside him, only their extreme length keeping him from being impaled by them.

  But he remembered it pulling the spear from its throat.

  Those legs could bend.

  “Help!” he barked, slamming his spear at the thing as it tried to bite him.

  Its mouth was open, but even though it wasn’t as fast as it had once been, it was still fast and easily dodged his attempts to gag it with his spear.

  Then Eliza was there in her earth form, wrapping her arms around the creature and pulling it away.

  Cal scrambled to the side, his leg screaming in pain as he did.

  “Toss the net!” Eliza shouted, her voice sounding muffled.

  Imogen grunted, lifting the net which they had managed to get down despite the sudden attack, and tossed it over the both of them.

  Cal tossed his spear to Imogen as she ran toward the writhing creature Eliza was trying to hold on to.

  It was slashing through her, but she reformed quickly after each slash, not letting go, though only barely able to hold on.

  Imogen had to leap to dodge one of its sharp limbs cutting her off at the ankles.

  She stabbed down at the monster, but it had learned, and now its mouth was closed.

  Then suddenly Rufus was there, leaping past the flailing limbs and landing atop the monster and Eliza, opening his huge mouth and sinking fangs that looked nothing like a puppy’s into its abdomen.

  “No!” Eliza cried, but the bite caused the monster to scream as well, opening its mouth.

  Seeing her chance, Imogen darted in, getting a slash across the thigh for her trouble. Undeterred, she stabbed the talon-spear as hard as she could down into its open mouth.

  It tried to close its mouth, seeing its mistake, but it was already too late.

  The spear sunk deep, and Imogen leaned on it, driving it even deeper.

  One of the monster’s limbs slashed across her arm, sending out a spray of blood that hit Cal in the face.

  He didn’t even notice.

  The thing’s thrashing intensified, and now Eliza was no longer enough to keep it down.

  It slashed through the remainder of the net, knocking both Imogen and Rufus away in the process, Imogen grunting and Rufus letting out a yelp of pain as his side was opened up.

  “Rufus!” Eliza roared.

  The monster got onto its four limbs, moved to retreat, but Eliza was enraged and was having none of that.

  She grabbed one of its limbs and with an effort that distorted her entire form, yanked and twisted on the limb, leaning forward as she did to cause it to bend unnaturally—even more unnaturally than it already was.

  There was a loud crack and the thing made that horrible screeching sound again.

  It limped away, now with only three limbs, greenish-black fluid oozing from the stump of the missing fourth.

  Eliza roared again and stabbed down with the torn off appendage.

  Its own limb pierced through its back, and it collapsed, screeching again, this time weaker, quieter.

  “Fuck you!” Eliza cried, grabbed the monster, and with a final roar lifted it into the air, swinging it hard down onto the edge of the hilltop, then hurling it off the edge into the rocks below, where it landed with a loud crack.

  66

  “Is it dead?” Cal called down to Imogen and Eliza in the rocky field at the base of the hilltop as they examined the monster.

  Even if he could make it down the front path, the rocks would do him in, so he was stuck up here, unable to join them. He hated it.

  Imogen was wounded, but not badly. Eliza was completely unscathed, still in her earth form.

  Cal had one hand on Rufus next to him, the remainder of the leaf basket secured to his abdomen as a bandage where he’d been slashed by the monster.

  It had been a deep gash, all the way down through the fat and into the muscle, but it wasn’t bleeding too badly, and his organs weren’t visible.

  The alien female stood next to him, looking down as well.

  Instead of answering, Eliza raised the limb she was carrying and slammed it down repeatedly on the spider-like monster’s neck until its elongated head separated from its body.

  Then she kicked the body, hard.

  Other than the residual motion from her assault, it didn’t move.

  She looked up at him. “It is now.”

  She dragged the corpse up into their base while Imogen carried the severed head. They put the h
ead and body next to the pile of the monsters from the waves, then Eliza instantly reverted to her human form and rushed over to Rufus.

  “Hey boy,” she said gently, petting his head as he weakly licked at her hand. Tears filled her eyes and threatened to overflow.

  “He’ll be okay,” Cal assured her.

  She nodded, not looking at him.

  He hoped he would be okay. He had probably saved them. Without his attack, Imogen might not have gotten a chance to stab the spear into the monster’s mouth, and Eliza certainly wouldn’t have flown into a reckless rage when the monster injured him and literally torn it limb from limb.

  “Where are you going?” Cal asked as Eliza stood and headed toward the front gate.

  She stopped and looked back at him. “Getting him some Tylenol flowers. He must be in pain.” She flicked her eyes to Cal’s leg. “And you, I imagine.”

  Cal grimaced, nodding. “That would be nice. You be okay?”

  She grinned weakly. “I can take care of myself.” At this, she turned to earth once more and easily scaled the gate rather than bother with opening it.

  The alien female sat silently, watching them.

  Cal wondered what she was thinking.

  Imogen held a spear, patrolling the hilltop while Eliza was gone, casting frequent mistrustful looks at the alien wolf-cat woman.

  For some reason, Cal didn’t think she was a threat. Not anymore, not without the rest of her tribe.

  Or was that what she wanted him to think? Caused by whatever it was she had done to him?

  “Hey,” he said to her, and Imogen looked over again.

  She looked up at him with her big, wide-set eyes.

  “You understand what I’m saying?”

  Her expression didn’t change.

  “No, I guess not.” He sighed. Then looked around at the destruction.

  The nets they had worked so hard on were destroyed, Mirabelle was still unconscious, Rufus was seriously injured, Imogen had deep cuts on her thigh and arm that didn’t pose an immediate threat but which would need to be taken care of eventually, and his leg felt like someone was actively trying to saw through it with a dull, rusty butter knife—and succeeding.

  Other than that though, things were great.

  67

  A while later Eliza came flying back over the gate, startling them all.

  She quickly reverted to human form, dumping an armful of Tylenol flowers on the ground near Cal and Rufus.

  “Shit,” he said. “Scared the shit out of me.”

  “Sorry. I think I’m faster when I become dirt.” She sounded breathless. Cal didn’t think he’d ever seen Eliza breathless.

  She wasn’t even petting Rufus.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “More than! Look!” She pointed at the flowers.

  Cal looked at them and frowned. “Yeah. Um, good.” He couldn’t see why she was so excited.

  “No! Really look. Use your display.”

  Cal did.

  COMPOSITION

  EDIBLE

  NONPOISONOUS

  MEDICINAL

  PRIMARY EFFECTS

  PAIN RELIEF

  HEALING

  TERTIARY EFFECTS

  MUSCLE RELAXANT

  UPGRADED EFFECTS

  INCREASED PAIN RELIEF

  INCREASED HEALING

  “Huh, that’s new. Where’d you find them?”

  Imogen came over to examine the flowers.

  Eliza shook her head. “It’s the same flowers as always. I upgraded them.”

  Cal looked up at her in confusion. “What? You don’t have a token.”

  “I know!” she said, growing somehow even more excited. “It didn’t take tokens. I was out looking, you know, IDing things as I went in hopes of finding something better to help with healing, and I noticed a new screen when I came to these. It let me use points to upgrade them! I wasn’t sure how to work it, but I tried some random combinations.” She grimaced. “First one exploded. But second one gave these!”

  “Exploded?” Cal asked worriedly.

  “We can upgrade items, Cal!”

  “Or make them explode.”

  Imogen shrugged. “That might be useful too.”

  “That’s not all,” Eliza went on. “I think we can use it on any item we’ve already ID’d.”

  “Where’s this screen?” he asked, wondering if it was new or they had simply missed it before.

  Eliza explained, and sure enough when he opened it and focused on the flowers, he now had the option to spend points to upgrade them.

  But she was right, the interface was weird.

  “I have no idea how to use this,” he complained.

  “We’ll figure it out,” she said, still excited. She knelt and picked up one of the flowers, handing it to Cal. “Here, eat this.”

  He took it gratefully, chewing and swallowing quickly as Eliza watched.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Of course.”

  “I mean, you gave it to me first rather than your ‘child’.”

  She frowned, then realized he meant Rufus. “Oh,” she said, somewhat guiltily. “Yeah. I uh… wanted to make sure they didn’t explode when you ate them.”

  68

  Epilogue

  They spent the hours after the battle gathering the scattered bodies of the female alien’s tribemates.

  He still didn’t know why they’d wanted Imogen bad enough to come back and assault their base for her. He’d ask if they ever learned one another’s languages. Which if they were here and survived for long enough, they just might.

  And if he ever grew to trust her enough, he might be able to find out through that mind-meld thing she’d done with him.

  His mind went to other uses something like that could have.

  Stupid man-mind. He wasn’t going to risk life and limb simply for novel stimulation. Though he imagined many of his forebearers had done so for the urge to be so strong.

  Her name turned out to be Ouva, or something like it. At least, that’s what it had sounded like to Cal when Imogen did the whole, “me Imogen” and then pointed at her thing.

  Before Eliza, Imogen, and Ouva had headed down to the rear of their base to search for and bring together the bodies, Ouva had tried to put her hand to his forehead again, but he hadn’t let her.

  She’d seemed frustrated by this, but he didn’t trust her enough yet, and still didn’t know if even that once that she’d done it—showing him what she wanted to do to Imogen, waking her up—had somehow compromised him.

  Cal was unable to help with the gathering of bodies due partly to watching Mirabelle and Rufus, but primarily because his wound was so severe that he couldn’t even stand.

  The flowers did eventually kick in, granting him a blissful reprieve from the agony he’d been in, and he was finally able to not only stand, but actually walk. Slowly.

  Still, Eliza forbade him from leaving the hilltop, saying both paths were too dangerous for him in his condition.

  So now he sat at the top of the rear path, the gate open, watching as Ouva performed some kind of ceremony which involved cutting herself and dribbling the blood over her dead tribemates’ eyes and mouths—and which Cal briefly thought would bring them back to life like vampires.

  It didn’t.

  Once this was done she, with Eliza’s assistance, set their bodies alight.

  They burned down much quicker than Cal would have thought possible.

  When they were ash, she gathered these mixed remains and wrapped them in a large leaf from the banana-apple tree and sent it down the stream.

  She didn’t seem bothered by the loss, except for that of the female she had brought with her into their camp. She’d taken extra time on her, not only putting her blood on her eyes and lips, but also using it to paint several symbols on the furless skin on the center of the body, then bending down to kiss the hollow of her throat.

  Even for this member, Cal never saw her shed a tear. Perha
ps her kind couldn’t.

  Once this was done, Imogen finally demanded her armor back.

  Ouva stripped it off willingly enough, though seemed upset to lose the protection.

  When it was clear Ouva wasn’t going anywhere—either she didn’t have anyone else to go to, or didn’t want to—and wanting to make her a part of the team, worried that she might start to feel ostracized, Cal decided he’d make her a set of clothing from leaves like he’d done for both Mirabelle and Imogen.

  They’d need all the help they could get with the next wave—not to mention those spider-monsters if there happened to be more of them—and she was fantastic with both spear and that rock sling.

  Also, it was something to keep him occupied while waiting on his leg to heal.

  It took Mirabelle the entire next day and night to finally come around, but she did—to a degree of relief Cal didn’t know he was capable of feeling.

  She was dizzy and tired for the following day, however by the third she was starting to feel like herself again.

  Cal kept her fed on a diet of upgraded Tylenol flowers and prickly green fruits, hoping the flowers would heal any brain damage she might have sustained from the traumatic injury.

  The flowers had healed his leg nearly completely now, enough that he could finally contribute a bit.

  They’d also healed Rufus, who was almost back to being his happy-go-lucky self, though he was clearly still hurting. It was the first morning he was feeling well enough to wake Eliza, and she cried and hugged him for a long time after.

  The flowers had healed Imogen’s wounds in a single day, and Ouva’s in not much longer. And of course Eliza hadn’t needed them at all.

  That night Cal finished the leaf outfit he’d been working on for Ouva. When he presented this to her, she smiled, making a slight bowing motion, and then proceeded to take a bite out of it instead of putting it on.

  Cal chuckled and shrugged. If she wanted to stay naked, that was fine by him.

  But Eliza finally communicated to her that she was supposed to wear it and got her to put it on.