by Sean Shake
“More than seen it. I killed one of them.”
“How?”
I wasn’t sure how much to tell him, but I couldn’t see the harm in telling him this. “It attacked us when we were at Abigail’s parents’ farm. Pulled me right out of the truck. It actually went for Emma, but I managed to get in the way before it could grab her.”
“I thought there was something between you two.”
I smiled, but didn’t reply. I didn’t think I’d given any indication about my relationship with Emma, so it was surprising that he had noticed it.
“It pulled me out and attacked me. I thought it was going to bite my head off. So I punched my fist into its mouth and down into its throat to choke it.”
“That’s a… invasive way to choke someone.”
“I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get a grip on it. But, getting my fist down its throat and pulling it to me, that was something I could do. And it worked.”
Gabriel shook his head. “That easy? Just choke them? I’ve heard of people shooting them with guns and rocket launchers. Our neighbors said they saw, before all the broadcasts went out, the military hitting them with mortar shells. Nothing. Not a scratch.”
We sat in silence for several seconds, letting that sink in.
More and more I was thinking it wasn’t simply the manner in which I’d killed that alien creature, but the fact that I had been the one to do so.
The eyeless guard had succumbed to a broken mop stick on our first encounter.
Or if not succumbed, at least been injured by.
I wondered if that robot, that ‘terminator’ I’d hit with the truck had been injured, or if maybe it had to be a more direct attack than that.
“They say,” Gabriel said finally, “some people said anyway, that we transform into those things. Like zombies. Or body snatchers. You know anything about that?”
“I can’t say anything for certain, but I do know that the one that attacked us at Abigail’s parents’ farm, after he died, the stuff on him sort of dissolved, leaving a human body behind. Abigail said it was her parents’ neighbor.”
Gabriel nodded slowly, as though expecting this. “I can't believe it's finally happened. I never believed it really could, just the raving of lunatics.” He hesitated, glanced at my hands again. “You know, there’s this—”
There was a loud noise from outside, drawing our attention.
We looked at each other briefly, then both got up at the same time, Gabriel raising his shotgun. He looked down at it and shook his head. “I’m guessing this probably isn’t gonna do us any good.” He looked down at my fists, then up to my face. “But maybe you can.”
“Maybe I can,” I agreed.
37
The noise was loud enough to wake the women.
Hunter was the first come over, and judging by how alert she was, I got the feeling that she’d never even gone to sleep.
“They’re here,” she said. Not a question.
Mary, Emma, and Abigail appeared behind her, Abigail and Mary looking groggy for having been asleep such a short time. I supposed Emma was used to it being a nurse.
That, or she hadn’t slept either. This was Mary’s home, and almost like Abigail’s home, so it wasn’t like sleeping in a stranger’s house for them. They’d be more comfortable, find it easier to fall asleep.
All six of us stared up at the door, Gabriel clutching his shotgun, Abigail and Mary clutching each other, and Hunter and Emma standing on either side of me.
Hunter turned and looked at me. “We have to go and fight them. They know we’re down here. Well, they know we’re near here. It’s only a matter of time till they find us.”
“How do you know that, girl?” Mary asked.
Hunter only shook her head.
I nodded. “Right. If we go out there first, we can get their attention. Maybe they won’t find you down here.”
Emma squeezed my arm. “Don’t leave us.”
I turned to her and smiled. Then I brushed her cheek with my hand, with my blackened hand, no longer afraid that it would harm her, and leaned down and kissed her on the mouth.
The kiss lingered for several seconds, and I didn’t want to break free, feeling a growing tightness in my chest, the yearning to stay with her, to be with her.
But then I pulled away. We had a job to do.
“Stay behind me,” I told Hunter as we made our way up the stairs.
I wasn’t sure what a girl in underwear would be able to do against these monsters, but given how fast she healed from her broken legs, and the fact that she looked somewhat like a demon now, I thought maybe she would have a chance against them.
And if not, if it looked like things were going bad for her, I could to step in to protect her.
Hopefully.
I clenched my fists and looked down at my meager weapons.
Be the sword and shield.
My sword was barely larger than a letter opener, and my shield wasn’t even the size of a dinner plate.
But I’d made it this far, and I wasn’t going to give up.
Besides, what other choice did we have? Giving up wasn’t an option.
I placed my left hand on the door, ready to push it open, and looked to Hunter.
She nodded once, her face set.
I nodded back, then pushed open the cellar door and sprung outside.
38
Before I even knew what was happening something slammed into me knocking me off my feet and sending me flying into the bushes lining the yard.
I heard what I thought was Hunter scream, and then what sounded like the cellar door shutting.
Oh God, I hoped something hadn’t gotten down there and locked itself in with them.
Whatever had hit me was still on top of me, but I was pinned in those fucking bushes, face first, and couldn’t see shit, because it was dark in here, and these leaves and branches were like tendrils, holding me tight.
I made fists with both my hands and swung wildly behind me.
There was a satisfying scream, and then the pressure was gone and I slashed at the bushes until I freed myself and tumbled out, then rolled to my feet.
On the ground, spurting red blood—which was surprising given its apparent species—was something that looked like a cross between a fly and a cockroach.
There was also something vaguely humanoid about it, though I couldn’t place my finger on what exactly. There were no human features, just… a sense of humanity.
Like it wasn’t simply a dumb insect.
But it had tried to kill me, so, clenching my fist again, I drove my blade down through its head and thorax, slicing it in half vertically, hoping that would kill it, vaguely remembering trying to kill a lobster once and having a rather memorable—if horrific—experience of it not dying despite not having a head.
But this thing did die, and it stopped moving as its two halves split and fell away from each other.
I turned my attention to the surroundings.
And my mouth dropped open.
Surrounding Hunter in a semi-circle were—I counted—twelve beasts. Grotesque, distorted animals, growling and snarling, or just staring blankly at her.
None of them made a move, they were just staring, and she was just staring back.
I wanted to ask what she was doing, but held my tongue for fear of breaking the tension and causing all-out chaos.
I caught movement from the bottom of my vision and looked down, and saw the corpse that I had just split, not dissolving exactly, but its insectness dissolving, falling off it into a red pool, which then started creeping toward me.
I stood frozen, watching it flow over my boot and then up my leg, flowing over the outside of my ninja pants without leaving wetness behind, and then going to my neck again, like that green smoke had.
It poured into my nose and mouth, tasting like nothing at all, and again, instead of feeling infected, I felt empowered.
My hands throbbed, and instinctively I made fists.
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The blade had grown longer, and the shield was now about the size of a dinner plate, instead of smaller than one.
I looked down at the corpse.
It was a naked man in his sixties or seventies. He had no body hair, or hair on his head, and I would’ve perhaps attributed it to baldness and a fondness for razors, but he also had no eyebrows.
I frowned, thinking back to Abigail’s parents’ farm.
That man hadn’t been naked, nor had he been missing his hair.
A mystery for another time.
I looked back and found Hunter still standing there, those creatures still around her.
As I watched, another one came leaping in from somewhere onto the roof of the neighbor’s house. This one looked like one of those frilled-neck lizards with the neck skin that opens up, like that poison-spitting dinosaur in the first Jurassic Park.
Except this one used the skin to glide on the air as it jumped from the roof.
This movement was very odd. Inhuman—inanimal even. It lifted its head straight up, as though it were looking at the stars, forming something like an umbrella, and evoked nothing so much as a reptilian Mary Poppins as it glided down and landed in the semi-circle, closer to Hunter than any of the others.
Then it stood, on two legs, to its full height, which had to be over nine feet.
It hissed at her, and with the frill around its head spread open, its head was the size of a car door.
Hunter stood her ground, silently, and I wondered what the hell she was doing. There was no way we could take all these on.
Or was there?
I realized I had no idea what I was capable of, or what Hunter was capable of.
Then Hunter looked at me, glanced down to my hands, then back up to my eyes. “Be ready,” she said, then faced the crowd again, reached behind her back and undid her bra, letting it fall to the ground.
What the— I started to wonder, but then saw something move in her back. Bones sprouted out from her shoulder blades and shot behind her, unfurling to eight or nine feet long, far above the head of that giant hissing lizard.
Then something started sprouting from those bones.
She was growing wings.
Ten seconds later and large reddish-black wings were spread out behind her.
She looked more like a demon than ever.
But then she looked at me again, and instead of a demon, I got the impression of something angelic.
Then she flew.
Flapping her wings hard once she lifted into the air, then twirled, her bodying going horizontal, parallel with the ground and pointing right in my direction.
She flapped again, and this time sent herself hurtling toward me.
‘Be ready,’ she had said, but she hadn’t told me for what.
Assuming it was this, I let her collide into me.
The impact didn’t hurt, and she wrapped her arms around me and then we were flying into the sky.
Behind us the creatures chittered and roared, sounding aggravated we were out of their grasps.
Assuming none of them could fly.
“What are you doing?” I asked, the wind almost muting my voice.
“I’m giving you wings. There’s too many of them to take out at one time. You’re too weak. But if you kill a few more, and then a few more, you’ll get stronger. You’ll have a chance.”
“How do you know that?”
“I don’t know, I just do. Now turn around, so your back is against me.”
I did so, though feared I would fall to my doom.
But she didn’t let me. Her hands were around my waist, her large breasts pressing against my upper back, her legs dangling against my thighs.
I felt her lips on the top of my head, kissing me.
“Use me,” she whispered, and it seemed as though she was speaking into my mind. “You can control me. You can fly.”
I suddenly became aware of something, an extra part.
I flapped my wings.
I flapped my wings? I didn’t have—
But I did. I did now, anyway. At least for now.
Hurry. Look.
I looked down, somehow knowing where she meant without even having to have her point, and saw two of those beasts trying to pry open the cellar door.
They looked somewhat like lions, and apparently weren’t very smart, as they were clawing at the door rather than trying to pull it open.
Screeching from my left alerted me to an attacker and I closed her (our) wings, and dove.
So, at least one of them could fly, then.
The thing—that looked vaguely like a giant, distorted eagle—missed and went flying overhead as I dove down toward the ground, toward the two monsters trying to break through the door and get at my companions.
At my friends.
39
The alien-lion creatures must’ve sensed me, because at the last moment they looked up and started to react.
But it was already too late for them.
At the last second I opened our wings and pulled up, flapping hard as I made a fist with my right hand, forming my shadow blade, and sliced across both their throats.
By the time they could react both their throats were spurting blood and our wings were lifting us easily back into the air.
The eagle—which I had already somehow forgotten about—rocketed past on my right and slammed into the ground.
Guess it wasn’t as agile as we were.
I flipped in the air to look back upon the carnage, expecting the creature to have exploded or at least be severely mangled, but instead it pushed itself up, shook its avian head as though slightly stunned—or just to get the dirt off—and took to the air after me.
Where it had crashed, was a four-foot divot in the earth.
“Strong bastards.”
Nothing of this earth can hurt them: Hunter’s voice in my head.
The thing screeched as it flew at me, while the other creatures on the ground that couldn’t fly jumped on the roof, trying to get closer to me.
That was fine. Let them focus on me, not on those cellar doors.
I made fists, creating a sword and shield, and raised my left arm just as the eagle-creature slammed into me.
I went flying back in the air from the impact, but not before I ran my blade through its neck, severing its head.
The body went limp and fell to the ground in two pieces, the head colliding with a bipedal mongoose. Or maybe it was a cat. In any case, it dove for the head, attacking, then stopped and lost interest, maybe realizing it was one of its own.
The body lay a few feet away from where the head had come to rest.
I grimaced, knowing it was going to turn into a human head and body.
Where the lions had been were now two naked male figures, a large pool of red blood between them. It looked as though it was jumping off the ground.
You need to take the power. Hunter said in my mind. Before someone else does.
I saw a bear charging toward where the lions had been slain, and I dove for the corpses.
But I wasn’t fast enough, the bear beating me there by seconds, the blood leaping onto it and going down its throat.
It roared and then just looked up at me.
I expected something to happen, for it to transform or grow larger. But nothing did.
Dammit! Hunter said in my head, and I wanted to cover my ears at the volume, except I knew that wouldn’t do any good. Get the other one.
I instantly knew what she meant, and twirled in the air, then dove again, toward where the eagle had crash-landed.
I landed on my knees next to the decapitated body, which had already reverted back into a young human female, and the pool of blood jumped from the ground and straight to my face, entering my nose and throat, and this time it felt like it went in my eyes as well.
I felt my power grow and saw my blade increase in size.
But I’d made a terrible error.
It’d been a mistake to land like this. I
’d been distracted by the sight of the girl’s body, the sudden power I’d gained from it, and now several creatures piled atop me, grabbing my wings, and suddenly they weren’t my wings anymore, as Hunter was ripped off of me.
She cried out in agony as the monsters descended upon her.
There were still several on and around me though, and one—the bear that had stolen the lions’ power from me—clawed across my face with so much force that it felt like it should’ve knocked my head off, but instead only scratched the surface of my skin.
Another blow came, but this time I was ready with my shield.
I blocked it and then stabbed, going right through the bear’s throat.
I kicked its now limp body away from me and slashed at the others, drawing blood, and actually decapitating the mongoose-looking creature.
The creatures that remained retreated from me, hissing and growling, that giant Jurassic Park lizard standing tall above the rest, its neck frill spread taut.
Not caring about the blood that poured from my two kills, about the power it gave me as it oozed up my body and poured into my nose, eyes, mouth, and ears, my mind solely focused on Hunter, I turned away from my attackers, and to her.
She was being devoured.
I lunged at the monsters. There were three of them feasting on her, all some kind of predator, a reptile and two mammals, but all I cared about right now was killing them, and saving her.
If I could.
Because even as I skewered my blade through one of the creature’s skulls, I wondered if she’d be able to heal from this.
This was more than just two shattered legs.
The creature instantly went limp, and its red blood poured into me as I rolled past the other two and sprang up again next to Hunter so all of them—including my own attackers—were in front of me.
I roared—much like the bear had—with the increased power I felt flow through my being.
Hunter was bleeding from a hundred different wounds, and huge chunks of her flesh were missing. Her wings were broken and torn, and her head lulled senselessly as she made vague sounds of pain.
I stood protectively in front of her, placing myself between her and her two remaining attackers, my own attackers still several feet away, waiting.