I sighed and backed away to remove the flashlight from between my legs. “Could you hold this?” I passed him the flash, saw he had his keys in his hand as he took it, and removed my jacket.
I dropped the jacket to the floor and pulled the bottom of my shirt from my trousers. I tried to rip a section off so I could bandage him. Nothing happened. I laughed. “I’ve seen people do this in movies, it always looked so easy.”
He walked to me and passed me the flash. “Hold this. I’ll try.” He took hold of my shirt. “I’d suggest you hit the gym, but I don’t want you to lose your curves.”
He smiled. I rolled my eyes. He ripped my shirt and pulled off a section of the material. I felt naked at that moment. My belly was showing. If he’d ripped any more material off my tits would be out too. “Alec, what the hell?”
“Sorry, I’ve never done it before. Like you said, in movies it seems to work just fine.”
I rolled my eyes yet again, placed the flash between my legs once more, and wrapped his arm in the section he’d ripped from me. I tied it tight and soon the white material was being ingested by red. “How’s that?”
“Good … I think … It’s better than nothing.”
I removed the flash from my legs and shone the beam at the doors. “Where’s your car parked?”
“I’m not sure. I can’t remember. Once I spent an hour looking for it.”
“Fuck me, Alec.”
“We don’t have time, remember?”
“Normally I appreciate your humor, but not now.”
“Okay, fair point.” He held his keys up to the window, and while peering through into the dark of the garage, pressed the button on them. We heard the beeps and saw the lights flash.
“That’s not too far away,” I said.
“Yeah, not bad. Our luck is changing for the better.”
A massive crash sounded from up the stairwell. “You spoke too soon. Let’s get moving.”
Alec opened the doors and we stepped into the garage. No one was around. There was just rows of cars. It was just as dark as the rest of the building had been. He took me by the hand once more and we started to run toward his car.
In a sudden booming bang, a car that was parked to the right of us started to rise from the ground, the front end higher than the rear, the concrete underneath splitting open and upward, a metal object pushing on the underside of the vehicle, a bright light at the top of that, igniting us in bright white, and most of the garage too, even the doors to the stairwell we’d just exited.
“Don’t concern yourself with whatever the fuck that is, just keep running to my car.”
The doors to the stairwell were flung from there hinges as the monster crashed through them and locked its eyes on us before it jumped onto the hood of one of the parked cars next to it and started to race toward us, a foot landing on each of the roofs of the vehicles it traversed, indenting the metal, exploding the windows.
Alec opened the driver’s side door and I got in the passenger’s side. He was already seated and buckled up when I parked my butt and reached for my belt, my eyes never leaving the creature as it continued to car-crushingly stride toward us.
Alec had just started the car when the monster jumped down from the last vehicle it was running over the top of. Alec sped from the parking space we were in as it reached a hand out and smashed through my window, sending glass onto me, making me cover my eyes.
When I’d removed my arm from my face I saw its three fingers locked onto my door. I risked a look through the window and saw we were dragging it along side us. We drove through the beam of bright light coming from the metal object that had raised the other car. The intensity allowed me to be able to see that the concrete the monster was scraping over was tearing at its rubbery black flesh, leaving a trail of dark slime, its blood.
I looked back to the front windshield; Alec was about to smash through the barriers that led to the street when another monster fell from somewhere above us and dropped onto the hood of our car, bringing it to a stop. The engine must have been damaged, as smoke started to escape it, fast.
The monster on the hood raised its long arms into the air then smashed its hands down into the windshield, shattering the glass into a million pieces. “Out of the car!” Alec screamed as he opened his door.
I pulled on the handle to open mine and pushed against it. I couldn’t budge it. The monster we’d dragged was still holding on. I went to climb out of the window, but stopped when only my top half was through. The monster was starting to stand.
The creature on the hood reached into the car, through where the windshield used to be. I ducked low and its talons clawed at my seat, causing foam to puff from the holes it made.
I looked to Alec’s door. It was open. He wasn’t there. Then he was. He reached in, while crouched low, and grabbed the collar of my shirt. I locked my hand around his injured arm, felt blood seep through the makeshift bandage, and pulled, as he pulled at me.
I fell onto the hard floor of the garage, cutting my chin for sure. He stood me upright, and with my feet going in directions I didn’t want them to go, he dragged me into a run and back deeper into the garage, toward the light coming from the metal object.
I heard the monsters behind us as they began to give chase. Their legs were longer than ours, so even if they didn’t seem to have a massive amount of speed on their side, they’d catch us quicker than we could make it to a safe hiding spot.
We dodged behind a parked car. One of the monsters grabbed hold of the vehicle by the bumper and threw it from us. It crashed down onto the roof of two other cars as the beast roared, saliva flying from all its mouths.
My legs were ready to give in. I was ready to hurl again. I didn’t have anything else to give. I could hear clangs banging behind us, and the sound of windows smashing. It was the same sounds I’d heard before. They were both navigating over the tops of the parked cars we were running parallel to.
I tripped, lost my grip of Alec, and fell. I landed on my chest, my tits taking the impact, the last amount of air I had left shooting from my lungs. I’d landed close to a vehicle that reminded me of Dog The Bounty Hunter’s car, so I rolled under it to see Alec’s feet disappearing into the distance and to hear the clang of one of the monsters landing on the roof.
If the monsters looked under they’d see me for sure, the light coming from the metal object was shining directly at me. If they flung the car off me, I’d be dead in seconds.
Two sets of feet dropped into my line of sight, they had three toes, just like their hands had three fingers. They had long nails on their toes too. They looked just as deadly.
A hissing came from the object that was beaming light at me. Steam shot from the sides and the top started to split apart, like a flower does when its being filmed with time-lapse photography, but with wires seeming to sever themselves, winding inward into the structure as they did.
A beautiful woman’s face appeared in the opening, wire and tubes sticking into the right side of her neck. She had long blonde hair, perfect skin. Her eyes opened. The monsters roared and I saw their feet starting to race toward her. The wires and tubes running into her neck detached themselves from her with little spurts and spouts of more vapor as they whipped out of sight.
She clambered out of the pod-like thing; fell to the floor of the garage, coughing up a milky substance once her roll had come to a stop. She was naked, her body was stunning, everything I wished mine was, but she had some kind of mechanical apparatus on her right arm, covering all her skin there, ending at her shoulder in some kind of golden glowing metal that was shaped to her body’s natural curve. If she didn’t stand soon she’d be dead. The monsters were almost on her.
“Hey, dickheads!”
I angled my head to look down the length of my body, a horrible ache attacking my neck. It was Alec. He was jumping on the spot, waving his hands over his head. “Come and get me, you pussy-mouthed motherfuckers.”
I looked back at the monsters�
�� feet. They were turning toward Alec. The woman was on her hands and knees, pushing herself up with the hand on her non-biomechanical arm. She wobbled when she was upright, her breasts jiggling, the beam of light on the pod behind her making her look as if she was a heavenly creature sent to save us.
She raised the biomechanical arm and two short blasts of green lasers burst forth in quick concession, a wub-wub popping on each one, the garage turning neon green for two quick, blinding moments.
I heard two sloppy bursting explosions of flesh and then sections of the monsters started to fly into my line of sight, skidding across the garage floor, covered in oily blood, which glistened in the beam from the pod. They stunk. They smelled like dead fish and the ass-end of a camel.
Alec’s head appeared in front of me. I jumped and screamed. He asked, “Are you okay?”
“I think so, battered and bruised, exhausted, but okay.” I let out a slow breath but followed it quickly with heaps of fast shallow ones.
“Thank God,” he said as he held his hand out.
I took hold of his hand and he gently pulled me from under the vehicle. I had trouble standing at first. I’m not sure if it was the ache in my muscles, caused by running more than I’d ever done in my entire life, or the pain that was pulsating through the rest of my body because of the falls I’d taken.
We both stood looking at the naked woman. She stood looking at us for a few moments and then she turned back to the pod and reached into the opening. I looked at Alec; his eyes were fixed to her butt. I rolled my eyes at that point.
She turned back around. She fastened some kind of bracelet to the wrist of her non-weapon arm. She pressed a few buttons, beeps sounding as she did, and then a hologram of a map appeared in the air above the device. It looked like something from Star Trek.
“You two,” she said as she turned off her map, which vanished with a whoosh sound. “I need your help. I need to make my way to a military compound. I can’t pilot your earth vehicles.” Her voice didn’t sound quite right, it had a hint of the robotic to it.
“Who are you?” Alec asked, his voice didn’t sound quite right, fear and exhaustion the cause.
“My name is Lexion. I need your assistance with this task. Time is of the essence.” She started to walk toward us, her hips swinging, her breasts doing the same. Alec and me took a step back, stopping when our backs hit Dog’s car. “Do you know how to pilot these vehicles?”
“Yes,” Alec was quick to blurt out.
“Then we must hurry. If we do not, the aliens will destroy your world before I even have a chance to prevent them.”
BRAD
The creature snapped its mouths at me. I ducked low and heard them clamp shut just over my head. It stomped one of its feet down at me next. I rolled, like I taught my students to do when taking a fall. The foot missed and I came back up to my feet.
The beam of my flashlight lit the monster and I saw Sara smash a roundhouse kick into its right leg. The leg buckled, but it didn’t fall. It lashed out with its right arm, hitting Sara in the stomach. The hit was powerful enough to send her flying across the gym, toward the boxing ring.
I followed her with the light of the flash, losing her a few times in the dark. I found her again as her back hit the ropes of the ring. She bounced off them with a cry of pain and then fell face first onto the floor.
The monster whipped its head toward me and reached out both of its long arms. I threw the flashlight into its face; it impacted then fell into a spin on the tatami mats, the beam bringing Bobby’s Glock to my attention … and also the fact the creature had eaten his head. It was a ghastly sight.
One of its three-fingered hands grabbed at my head. I bobbed and weaved from the attack, pushed the limb from me with a slap, and ran at the gun. I dropped to the mats to grab it. I had my hand on the Glock when the monster’s hand grabbed my left leg, dragging me over the floor toward it.
It picked me off the floor, held me upside down, and was moving me toward its mouth when I managed to struggle with the gun enough so I had it gripped properly. I was within biting distance, its mouths were open, and the teeth were ready to rip at my flesh.
I placed the barrel of the Glock in the center of its mouth and said, “Eat this.” I pulled the trigger, the flash of the shot assaulted my eyes, forcing me to close them, but only after I saw the star-shaped dark glop of blood pop from the back of its head.
It released its grip and I fell on my shoulder. I’m not sure if I broke it or not, but it hurt like a son of a bitch, I can tell you that much. The pain wasn’t enough to stop me from aiming the gun again when I was on my knees and steady.
I fired at the monster until the gun ran dry. Every shot struck the target. Oily blood spurted, sprayed and covered both the tatamis and me with the slimy nature. It was running down my face when the monster fell onto its back. I watched for a few moments, to see if I could tell if its chest was moving, if it was breathing or not, if it was alive or dead, then I realized the thing might not even have the same anatomy as we do, so I just stood, the ache in my shoulder stabbing at me.
Sara hobbled into view. She picked up the flashlight and stood looking at the creature. I moved to her. “Are you okay?” I asked.
She just nodded. Then she started to stomp a foot into the creatures face. She was screaming the whole time, her teeth gritted, pure rage infecting her features. The head was a slurry of all kinds of disgusting inners soon enough. The big eyes popping in turn with loud farts as they jetted out black snot onto us both.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she finally answered.
She shone the flash at the mess she’d made. It was a dark puddle with chunks of the rubber-like flesh; it was a complete pulp of a head. The only things that remained intact were its teeth, still attached to the jaws.
“Those things must be damn sharp,” I commented as I regained control of my breathing, which I’d not even bothered to address until then.
Sara shone the beam of the flashlight at her bare feet. “Shit. Shit. SHIT!” She hopped away from the monster.
I moved to her and steadied her; she leaned into me and raised her foot off the floor. “They are sharp. They’ve removed one of my fucking toes.”
“Shit.”
“I already said that.”
“So what do you think that thing is?” I asked as she moved from me and sat on the floor, examining her wound. “We should wrap that and stop the bleeding, I have a first aid kit in the office, if we can find it in all the mess.”
“Bobby, what’s taking so long, you plug them or something?”
“What was that?” Sara whispered to me.
“It sounds like Bobby didn’t come alone,” I said, listening to the footsteps I could hear on the stairs that led to the gym.
“Here’s the plan,” she said. “Go and stand at the side of the doors, I’ll turn the flash on to blind him when he enters, then you take him out.” She powered down the flash and we were in darkness again.
“How do you mean, take him out?”
“Kill him. We’re in deep now, no point in resurfacing until we’re done.”
“I’ve killed too many people, too many things, tonight.”
“You’re not going soft on me are you?”
“I …”
“Please, my hero.”
“I … Okay, maybe you’re right, something strange is happening here. We’re down the rabbit hole, let’s see where we come out, but could you do one thing for me?”
“You’d better hurry up and tell me, he’ll be up those stairs soon and our plan will be useless.”
“Talk to me.”
“How do you mean?”
“Tell me another story, one like you told me in the office. Remind me why I’m doing all this, get me in the mood.”
“You naughty boy,” she said in a cute voice. “Okay, I’ll tell you once you have him.”
“Okay,” I said as I moved as quickly as the dark allowed to the doors of the gym. I positioned myself w
ith my back to the wall at the left side of them, far enough away from them to not be seen when he entered, but close enough to grab him.
“Bobby! I’m coming in. Don’t shoot. Everywhere has gone dark. It's the same on the street. I’ll be fucked if I know what’s happening.”
The guy stepped into the gym. Sara lit him with the beam of the flash. He covered his eyes and I stepped toward him. He must have heard me, since he turned before I was able to get my hands on him.
He drove a punch into my face, which forced me to stumble backward. Then he reached into the jacket he was wearing. I reacted fast; I knew he’d be going for a weapon of some kind. I was right. He drew a knife. I pushed him from me with my right foot, digging my heel into his chest, which gave me some room to maneuver.
“Story!” I screamed at Sara as I tucked my stomach inward and dodged a slash from the knife.
“I sat alone on the bus ride home, like most days to be honest. I could hear whisperings about what happened to me in class; the fall, not the thigh grinding. I usually heard something being said about me behind my back, but this time it was incident specific. That made it harder to take. I just looked out of the steamed up window, the world looking like a ghostly apparition, and tried to block it out.”
The knife came back at me from the opposite direction. This slash was aimed higher, right at my head. I raised my left forearm and blocked the attack, hitting it into his own forearm, forcing the limb to shoot away from me and to his side.
“It was Friday, thankfully a few days off. I had a sleepover on Saturday with two friends, my only friends. It would be a chance to unwind, but I was sure the topic of conversation would come around to my ass-crash and boys. Two things I didn’t want to talk about at the moment.”
I grabbed the wrist of the hand that held the knife before he had a chance to go for me again. I pressed it into him, and held it against his leg, to keep him from stabbing at me, as I swung my head into his face. He stumbled backward, but I didn’t let go of his wrist. While still holding tight, I kicked my right leg out and my foot connected with his knee, forcing him to drop onto it.
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