The thumping bass thundered into the emptiness, thrumming off of the concrete like the pulse of muses. Shifting lances of pinks and blues pierced into the darkness through the open door, stabbing into the pocket of midnight contained within the echoing garage.
“HA!!” Liv’s inelegant laughter reverberated as she shut the door to the club behind them. “Gods, his FACE! That was priceless!” she cackled. Skye’s hand slid seamlessly into her own, with a smile that threatened to turn Liv into a puddle.
“I tried to be nice!” the darker woman insisted as they stepped out into the parking garage. “But he wasn’t taking the hint! How many ways are there to politely say ‘NOT GONNA HAPPEN, DUDE’?!”
Liv snickered, spinning on her toe and walking backwards for a few steps as she pressed her lips against her kindhearted partner in a brief kiss. “You’re nicer than I am.” she said with a smirk. “I-“
The darkness around them seemed suddenly less empty, causing the rave-ready punk to pause. The soft swishing sounds of her own leather and denim echoed oddly off of the concrete pillars, warping into a wet slithering that sent inexplicable shivers down her spine. It was almost a blessing when the slick whispers were drowned out by the heavy footfalls of a graceless man.
—
The earth shook, sending many of Bushwhacker’s fellows stumbling. She didn’t have the luxury of a dazed stupor at her own survival. Far above them all, the mother’s radiant scarlet light had already dimmed too far, drained by the monster that gripped her by the neck. Bushwhacker touched her empty quiver, then spun about until she spotted the shattered remains of one of her kin. The arm and shoulder that were left were not enough for her to guess who it may have been, but the spear in its loose grip would do. Snatching it, she crawled onto Wiley’s back.
“We aren’t done.” She urged, her rustling voice sluggish with exhaustion. “Go, Wiley. Run!”
—
The black coat and balaclava made the man look like something out of a bad movie. Watching the comic book style approach might have even been funny, if she wasn’t about to be on the receiving end of whatever this idiot had in mind. The guy kept one hand firmly gripped around something in his jacket pocket as he stalked up to them from where he had been hidden beside Skye’s car.
“Wallets. Now.” He growled, his words clipped with nerves. “On the ground.” The hand in his jacket jabbed, as if Liv needed further reminder of what the guy might be packing. She felt Skye’s iron grip on her arm, shaking. Liv knew she had to keep her head on straight. She knew what to do in this situation, she just had to keep it under control. A few bucks wasn’t worth the risk of a fight.
“Woah…” Liv drawled, keeping her voice as slow and calm as she could manage and putting her hands up before her. “No problem, buddy. All yours.” She kept her movements slow and steady as she drew her flat metal wallet from where it had been clipped to her belt. Gently tossing it toward him with one hand, she moved her off hand slightly back to indicate Skye. “My girl doesn’t have pockets, and tonight was on me. That’s all we’ve got.”
She held still, waiting for the man to grab her wallet and leave. When he didn’t immediately go for his prize, her skin prickled with goosebumps. Then she felt Skye yank at her arm, and heard her muffled cry of distress from behind her. Her stomach lurched as she realized that this wasn’t about money. Fuck.
Turning her head to the side, she kept both assailants in her peripheral vision, sparing only the briefest glance at her lover. The gloved hand covered Skye’s mouth, but her wide hazel eyes were focused and intent. Skye sucked in a deep breath through her nose, and Liv knew she had remembered what to do. The darker woman’s hand clenched and snapped downward as she twisted her body in the man’s grasp. Liv felt her heart hammering against her ribs as her entire world narrow down to a pinprick. A moment in time in which every body in her tiny universe was moving all at once.
—
The world blurred around Bushwhacker, smearing into shapes and sounds and colors as Wiley dashed. She felt as though reality was flickering. A massive tentacle would slam into the ground, then disappear into a black streak as Wiley changed direction. A fellow warrior would be snatched up in his jaws and saved from certain doom, only to disappear again as the salamander dropped them off and continued along.
“TOWARDS THE BEAST!” She susurrated as loudly as she could, her words lost in the howling torrent of air. Wiley rolled one large eye back to look at her, uncomprehending, so she hefted her stolen spear under one arm so the point was ahead of her mount. Using it to point towards the lumbering giant, she leaned towards the enemy. With a burst of overexcited understanding, Wiley scrambled into a sliding high speed turn and made for the pool of muck surrounding the abomination.
—
Terror faded into cold and calculating precision as Liv’s thoughts moved in time with every orbiting body trapped in this moment with her. The man holding Skye was tall, broad, and brawny. She knew at a glance that she couldn’t overpower him on an even field, to say nothing of his friend. There was no room for slow escalation here. This was going to be quick, ugly, and probably painful. Wallet man was already moving, with both hands out and legs tensing to spring at her. Skye’s fist was hurtling downward. Liv knew the opening that could make would be brief. She had one shot, and it meant turning her back on someone in a fight.
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She felt gravity pull at her as she spun, her right hand sliding up past her hip to grab the other item she’d kept clipped there and hiding it in her fist. The first footfall landed behind her as she pulled her fist back for a haymaker. The larger man’s eyes bulged as Skye’s fist smacked into his groin, autonomic instinct causing him to hunch forward slightly. Liv’s fist flew in a wide arc towards his nose. Even startled as he was, the blow was too telegraphed and slow to be effective. The second footfall pounded the pavement behind her as the man holding Skye ducked right, trying to put his captive between them. Liv’s arm snapped out straight then, passing over Skye’s head, rushing past the man’s jaw in what looked like a near miss. Then a metallic click popped the spring loaded blade from its handle, sheathing itself briefly in the man’s neck before sliding out again as cleanly as it went in.
—
Her spear plunged into yet another swollen eye, birthing pale jelly from its depths before Wiley hit the shifting muck again with enough speed to skim along its surface. Above them, the mother was flickering, and Bushwhacker imagined her own strength waning in time with the crimson glow. She couldn’t keep this up much longer. A shrill whistle pierced the growing fog of exhaustion, then. On the shore, such as it was, Saboteur stood astride his tamed creature. The bow was nocked and ready, the tip held a vial of swirling orange liquid. Slowly, the meaning of those pulsing whistles came to her. Opening. He needed an opening. Just a little bit more. A little bit longer and then she could rest…
—
Liv barely had time to register that the larger man had released Skye, bringing his hands to his throat and gurgling out inhuman sounds as he staggered. Then the world lurched, turning into ringing white shades of pain as a meaty fist landed on the back of her skull. When the sickening spinning of the world came to a stop, she felt an iron grip around her waist and nothing but air touching her hands and feet. She’d dropped her knife. She flexed her core, arching her back to try to slam her already aching skull into his nose, but only ended up with her cheek pressed against his own. In a panic, her legs flailed, trying to find anything that could grant her purchase. With a guttural scream she reached up to grab at his head, first yanking off his mask, and then gripping onto thick, tight curls of hair. His cries of pain bounced ethereally off the dim shapes in the darkness as her teeth closed on his ear. His blood tasted wrong. Bitter and salty, like stagnant, brackish water.
Her boots returned to the ground as the man reeled back, wailing as she spat the disgusting meat onto the ground. Now on firm footing, she pivoted and prepared to raise her guard when another blazing jolt of pain lanced through her jaw. She saw her slim chances of winning this fight fading fast as a third man’s fist sent her spinning to the ground. Her blurred view saw Skye’s sandaled feet, a pool of blood, a pale and lifeless man on the ground, and one of her own teeth bouncing across the concrete. The shattered white molar landed wetly in the crimson, right beside her knife.
—
The spear slipped from her grasp, caught in the black flesh of the beast’s eyelid. The verdant warrior found she lacked the strength to pull it free again. Slumping down against Wiley, she prayed it was enough. It had to be enough, for she could do no more. A distant whistle shrieked against the dull gray of her periphery, a signal meant for a mangrove. She was still trying to remember what it meant when the groaning bass of Mosstache’s wooden voice preceded the rushing sound of cleaved air. A clod of earth, broken by the beast itself but wielded by friendly forces, slammed into the creature like a hammer from the gods above. Slowed by muck, and half blind, the abomination tottered. Two stubby, hoofed legs tried to regain their footing while massive tentacles flailed for equilibrium. The field held its breath, going eerily silent for a moment as Wiley reached solid ground and came to a stop. Then a single voice, broke the stillness of the moment. Saboteur’s voice was firm and cold.
“Fire.”
—
Liv scrambled to grasp her blade, trying and failing to shout to Skye to run through the coppery blood that was filling her mouth. Snatching the handle, she rolled over to see this newest attacker. Too slow. She saw the tire iron raised over his head, and she knew with absolute finality that she was too slow to stop what came next.
The shrieking made her want to cover her ears. A hundred voices screamed like the damned as the vile tentacle around her neck loosened, and the ground began to rush towards her limp body.
The tire iron swung downward, slowly whistling towards her forehead. Over the crunch of bone, and the static haze of oblivion, Skye’s desperate pleas fell on deaf ears.
“NO! DON’T! ERIC, NO!!!”
Gasping in a breath she didn’t actually need, Liv coughed and heaved. She brought her hand to her incorporeal throat, she thought for a moment that she could still feel that THING’S mucosal slime on her. She felt infected. She blinked, looking all around her in shock. The towering horror was flailing madly, engulfed in flames and screaming in countless agonized voices. The eldritch being was already trying to roll and extinguish itself. Then her eyes drifted over the marshland around them, taking in the utter devastation. So many bodies. So many of her friends. They lay scattered and broken, splintered pulpy masses.
Rubbing her throat, Liv sat up onto her knees and made a strangled sob. It was too much to hold. Too much to process. The cold, slimy, unwanted touch. The grief of her lost life. The fear for Skye. The loss of so many friends. The violation of her own memories. Doubling over, Liv curled inward, shaking, before taking a deep, shaky breath. Clenching down with every part of herself, the crimson specter’s features twisted into a mask of agony and rage. The air pulsed, flowing around her like the first trickle of water from a broken dam. The howl that escaped The Manglegrove’s lips was awash with fury, and hate, and pain. Carried by a torrent of wind, shaped by tree and stone, nature itself made an unmistakably human wail of anguish.
The horror blazed hotter, flames fanned by the torrent of wind, as it lumbered out of the edge of the muck. Charred, cracking, and oozing vile pus, the beast fled back into the mist and shadows beyond her vision from whence it came.