by Amy Cross
“Hey!” she yelled, unable to get out of the way. “What -”
Before she could finish, the sea of people slammed into her and she struggled to stay on her feet as she was caught up in the rush and sent crashing along the corridor.
***
“Help!” Gemma screamed, trying and failing to get up from the floor. “Somebody -”
Suddenly a knee slammed into her face, knocking her back down. She tried to get up, but already several sets of feet were crushing her back down as the stampede continued. She'd almost made it to the door, but only almost; now the crowd was rushing to get out of the nightclub and Gemma was being pushed down against the floor with such force that she'd already felt several of her ribs being snapped.
And there were dead bodies all around.
She'd tried not to look at them, not to accept that they were real, but there were corpses on the floor. Some of the dead were covered in blood, while others had their necks snapped. Some looked as if they'd been sliced open by the thick black tendrils that had dropped from the ceiling, while others had clearly been crushed to death in the stampede.
“Someone help me up!” Gemma gasped, before a figure slammed into her and pressed her against the wall, pushing so hard that she couldn't even breathe. “Please!”
She reached up, but in that instant she felt another painful snapping sensation in her right side, then another, and then another as more ribs were broken. She tried to scream, but she couldn't breathe so the only sound that emerged from her mouth was a faint clicking sound as she dug her fingernails into the wall in a vain attempt to start hauling herself up. No matter how hard she tried, however, the downward pressure was too great and finally several of her fingernails snapped away as she slumped against the floor. A foot pressed against her back with such force that she felt her spine was about to break.
“I don't want to die like this!” she sobbed, as the pressure became stronger and stronger. “Please don't let me die like this...”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“I'm going to get you out of that thing! Hold on!”
Leaping up again, Merrie finally managed to grab the side of the metal contraption that was keeping Judy in place. After strengthening her grip, she began to haul herself up, wincing as she felt the muscles of her arms starting to burn.
Finally, somehow, she was able to haul herself onto the nearest metal bar, which swung slightly under her weight.
“You might as well come down from there,” Mr. Ford said, as he set some equipment onto a nearby trolley. “You can't do anything now. Your friend has taken her place in the prophecy.”
“She's not my friend,” Merrie sneered as she began to climb over toward Judy. “She's my sister.”
The contraption swayed again, and Merrie had to stop for a moment and try to regather her composure. She was starting to feel a little nauseous, so she told herself to not look down and to instead focus on finding a way to get Judy out of her restraints.
“It's going to be okay,” she said desperately as she began to examine the metal cuff around her sister's left wrist. “I'm here. I'm going to fix everything.”
“Kill me,” Judy whispered.
“Shut up.”
“Kill me,” Judy said again. “Please.”
“You don't know anything!”
“It hurts so much. I just want the pain to stop.”
“Tough shit,” Merrie replied, pulling harder on the cuff but still having no luck. “I'm your sister and I get to decide what happens right now. And I'm getting you out of this place.”
“Tell everyone I love them,” Judy groaned. “Don't tell them I died like this. Make something up. Just don't let them know the truth.”
“The truth?” Merrie said through gritted teeth. “The truth is that you're coming home with me. And after this mess, you never get to lecture me again, okay? I might be a bit of an idiot, but at least I never got myself into a jam like -”
Suddenly something sharp slashed across her face, causing her to cry out and pull back. Startled, she saw a thin black tendril poking up from beneath her sister, and when she touched her own face she felt blood running from a cut across her cheek.
The tendril flicked as blood dribbled from its side.
“What the hell is that thing?” Merrie asked, before spotting another tendril reaching up over her shoulder.
She spun around, but already more and more tendrils were starting to reach up from Judy's belly, and they all seemed to be slowly moving toward Merrie as she crawled back toward the edge of the metal contraption.
“Tell them to stop!” she shouted. “Judy, what are these things? How do I make them go away?”
She backed away a little further, until she was right on the edge of the swinging metal platform, but all she heard from Judy was a faint, pained groan.
“This is some kind of freaky escape room,” Merrie whispered, still trying to make sense of what was happening. “Judy, are you secretly a bit of a perv? Is this, like, some kind of S&M escape room thing? If it is, I'd really like it if you could take a break for a few minutes to let me get down from here. If you'd just -”
She gasped as another tendril sliced at her, cutting her left hand.
“That hurts!” she yelled. “Judy, if you have a safe word, now's the time to -”
Another tendril lashed out, and another, one catching her on the right wrist and the other slicing into her left ankle.
“Stop!” she screamed. “Judy, this really -”
Suddenly another tendril flicked toward her face.
Pulling back, Merrie managed to avoid the tendril, but in the process she lost her balance and began to fall back. She tried to grab something, but she was too late and instead she toppled over the edge and crashed down toward the floor, landing with a heavy thud and letting out a sigh as she rolled onto one side. Her eyes briefly opened for a few seconds, before slipping shut again as she lost consciousness.
“Excellent,” Mr. Ford said with a satisfied smile, looking down at Merrie for a moment before returning his attention to the mass of tendrils that still hung from Judy's suspended body. “A successful first defensive move outside the body. This bodes well.”
He stepped closer, before hearing a ringing sound from his pocket. Reaching down for his phone, he looked at the screen and saw that the manager of Apocalypse was trying to get through. He hesitated, deliberating as to whether he should bother answering, but finally he accepted the call.
“What is it?” he asked as he glanced at Mr. Velucci's dead body on the floor nearby. “I'm -”
“Everything's collapsing!” the voice screamed on the other end of the line. “It's a stampede! These things are attacking everyone!”
“What exactly do you mean?” Mr. Ford asked, with a flicker of concern. “What kind of -”
“They're everywhere!” the voice continued, as more screams could be heard coming from the club. “They're cutting people to ribbons! There's a crush! I don't know how to -”
Suddenly the voice broke into a pained gurgle, followed by a thudding sound as if the phone had been dropped. Mr. Ford listened for a moment longer, before cutting the call and turning to look up once more toward Judy.
“It seems the specimens at the club have rather spoiled things,” he mused out loud. “I thought it was safe to let them be dormant there. After all, they couldn't be killed and it was better than letting them all stay up here. Unfortunately, they must have sensed the presence of the Pure One. They're going to attract some significant attention.”
Checking his phone again, he took a look at Twitter and saw that Apocalypse was already trending. Clicking on the link, he saw a timeline that was filled with videos from inside the club.
“An inconvenience,” he muttered to himself, “but no more. I rather think we're going to have to switch to the back-up plan, but that is acceptable. Mr. Velucci might have been rather narrow in his expectations, but I was careful to have certain contingencies in place.”
> He tapped to open an app on his phone, and then he tapped again.
Above, the metal contraption began to slowly lower from the ceiling.
“Don't worry,” he told the mass of tendrils as they came toward the floor. “There's no need to panic, I know exactly what to do. And perhaps Mr. Velucci's prophecy was a little more literal than he thought.”
Stepping past Andreas Velucci's corpse, Mr. Ford began to remove the cuffs that were holding Judy to the metal rods. As he worked, he heard her let out an agonized groan, but this only caused his smile to broaden.
“Your place in history is assured, my dear,” he explained. “The prophecy foresaw your role as the progenitor of the Pure One. And unlike the rest of your miserable species, you still have a role to play in the future of life on this planet.”
Judy groaned again, but she was powerless to resist as Mr. Ford began to extricate her from the pieces of metal.
Nearby, on the floor, Merrie remained unconscious.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Gemma!” Kay screamed, cupping her hand around her mouth as she staggered away from the nightclub. “Merrie! Where are you?”
All around, people were crying out and running, while others – walking wounded mostly, although others had more serious injuries – were sitting on the ground and waiting for help to arrive. Sirens could be heard in the distance, although they were clearly still a few minutes away, and more screams were rising from the Apocalypse club as its foundations creaked and groaned.
“Gemma!” Kay shouted again, desperately hoping to spot some sign of her friends. “Come on, you have to be here somewhere! Gemma! Merrie!”
Hearing a loud creaking sound, she turned and looked back toward the club. Dead bodies were scattered around the main door, and she'd already heard people sobbing about the crush inside. She knew people had died – lots of people – but she wasn't yet ready to concede that anything might have happened to either Gemma or Merrie. They'd have found their way out, she was certain of that.
They had to be alive.
“Kay!”
Turning, she looked out across the dark street, struggling to work out where the voice had come from. Then, finally, she spotted a familiar figure sitting on the ground, and she rushed over to check that her friend was okay.
“Gemma!” she gasped, dropping to her knees and putting her arm around her. “I was starting to think something had happened to you!”
“Don't squeeze me!” Gemma said, pushing her away. “My ribs!”
“What happened?”
“I thought I was going to get crushed to death,” Gemma stammered, with tears in her eyes. “A lot of people did. I saw it happen, they were all around me. And those things...”
Her voice trailed off as she thought back to the heat and the horror of the club.
“I couldn't breathe,” she continued. “I don't even know how I got out. A door must have given way at the last second, or a wall. Something. I was a passenger by then. I really thought I was about to die.”
She hesitated, and then she broke down into a series of heavy sobs.
Kay instinctively put her arms around her, before moving her arms up to hug her shoulders in an attempt to not hurt her damaged ribs. As she held Gemma tight, she turned and looked back toward the club as she heard sirens getting closer, and she saw that the street was littered with bloodied corpses.
“What happened in there?” she whispered. “What were those things?”
Suddenly hearing a roaring sound, she turned just in time to see lights in the sky, and she watched as several helicopters raced over the scene, heading toward the hills.
“It's like everything's falling apart,” she said as a shudder passed through her chest. “It's like the end of the world.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Merrie!” Javier shouted as he forced his way through the drapes, finally stopping when he spotted the metal contraption hanging from the ceiling.
It took a moment before he noticed the two figures slumped on the floor.
“Merrie!”
After racing across the room, he dropped to his knees and turned Merrie onto her side, only to see a bruise developing on her forehead. He shook her shoulder, hoping to rouse her, and then he put two fingers on the side of her neck in an attempt to check her pulse.
“She's alive,” he said, as Ruth hurried over to join him. “We have to get her out of here.”
“What happened to him?” Ruth whispered, stepping past and then stopping to look down at Mr. Velucci's body. Her eyes were immediately drawn to his empty chest cavity, where most of his organs had been ripped away. “That thing is out of him now,” she continued, before looking around. “Where did it go?”
“This place is insane,” Javier said, struggling a little as he hauled Merrie onto his shoulder and then got to his feet. “We get out now, and we ask questions later.”
“Where did she go?” Ruth asked, looking up at the metal contraption above their heads. “What happened here?”
“Let's move!” Javier shouted, grabbing her arm.
“We have to find Mr. Ford,” she said, turning to him. “He's the only one who knows what's really going on!”
“I don't care about any of that right now,” he told her. “The police can figure it all out, but right now our only job is to get as far away from this villa as possible. Do you understand?”
“This is all linked to my mother,” Ruth whispered. “I don't know it all, not yet, but I think it all links back to her somehow. She's the one who started it.”
“We don't have time for this now,” Javier said, tightening his grip on her arm and then forcing her to follow as he began to carry Merrie toward the door. “Like I told you, the police can figure it all out once we're safe. If we stay here, we'll never work out what's happening and we might end up dead. You've got yourself mixed up in something big, Ruth. I don't know exactly what's going on, but people are dying here.”
Ignoring her attempts to break free, he dragged her out into the corridor and then marched her toward the double-doors in the distance. After pushing through, he stopped and tried to figure out which way to go next, and then finally he turned to Ruth.
“How do we get out of here?” he asked.
He waited, but she simply stared at him.
“How do we get out?” he shouted.
Startled, she stared for a moment longer before seeming to emerge from her daze.
“I know the way,” she stammered. “I... I know how to get us out of here.”
Turning, she began to lead him back the way they'd just come.
“No!” he yelled. “This way!”
“This is the quickest exit!” she shouted, pushing open another set of doors and heading through. “You have to trust me!”
“This had better not be more bullshit,” he muttered, setting off after her with Merrie's unconscious body still slung over his shoulder. “I should have just stayed at the studio tonight. I could be fast asleep right now, without a care in the world.”
He made his way around the corner, only to bump straight into Ruth as she stood in the way.
“What -”
Before he could finish, he saw the problem. Ahead, several of the black tendril creatures were covering the door, blocking the route out of the building.
“Now what?” Javier asked.
“Those things are dangerous,” Ruth replied, watching as the tendrils writhed across the wall. “They might not look like much, but they can kill.”
“I believe you,” he said. “Okay, we have to find another way out.”
“This way.”
She led him along another corridor, then another, then another until he began to worry that they were lost. Finally, however, they reached another corner, only to stop as they saw more creatures blocking the exit.
“I'm starting to think that this is intentional,” Javier said. “It's like they're determined to keep us in here.”
“Or to keep other peo
ple out,” Ruth suggested. “It's almost as if they're protecting something.”
“I don't care what they think they're doing,” he replied, taking a step forward. “I'm not going to let a bunch of pumped-up little octopuses hold me prisoner.”
“Be careful!” she hissed. “Javier! Don't get too close!”
“What are they going to do?” he asked. “Sucker me to death?”
“They might!” she warned him.
“They look pretty docile,” he continued as he got closer to the door. An electric light was buzzing on the ceiling above as he stopped for a moment, and he watched as the tendrils quivered. “They're not -”
Suddenly one of the tendrils lashed out, slashing his face, followed by two more.
“What the hell?” he gasped, taking a step back. Feeling the heat from the electric light on his face, he reached up and felt a slight cut on his left cheek.
“I told you they're dangerous!” Ruth called out to him. “Come on, there are other ways out! They can't have them all covered!”
“It's discolored,” Javier whispered, staring at the tendril that had struck him. Whereas most of the tendril and the creature remained black, one of the tendril's edges was now a seared whitish color, and the creature itself seemed to be recoiling while its companions continued to writhe with menace.
“Let's go!” Ruth shouted.
“The heat scared it,” Javier continued, as he saw that another tendril was preparing to strike. “I don't think these things like the heat at -”
Suddenly the next tendril lashed out. This time, Javier managed to duck out of the way, although after a moment he reached up and grabbed the tendril, holding it tight even as its razor edge dug deep into his hand.
“Not so fast,” he said through gritted teeth, as the creature tried to pull the tendril free.
Raising his hand as blood ran down past his wrist, Javier forced the tendril closer and closer to the electric light. As he did so, he could see the tip starting to whiten, and finally he was able to make out ripples of flame spreading across the glistening flesh. The pain in his hand was severe, but he knew he couldn't stop now so he squeezed even tighter and forced the tendril closer and closer to the light, until finally the entire tip burst into flames.