It was out of place, way too late, and in a way kind of comedic that it crossed his mind at this very moment. Yet, as Darryl slowly backed away from Ben and his transforming seat, he realized something.
Three million people already died in the first hour.
Darryl knew that something was off about their previous conversation. He had chalked it up to Ben’s odd cheer and enthusiasm despite his broken leg, but something never stopped tugging at the back of his mind.
Now he realized what bothered him. Ben had been talking about an easy start and real world animals being their first foes, when they already knew that three million people had died. Something like that didn’t happen with just traps and wild dogs.
No, what killed people were real, deadly foes. Foes like this monster…
“Ben… That’s not a sheep.”
Ben chuckled awkwardly. “What do you mea-”
Ben froze up as he turned to dismissively pat the sheep, the ‘sheep’ that by now bared a row of razor-sharp fangs and blinked away the false bovidaic eyelid to reveal real canine eyes hungrily staring up at Ben. A moment later, Darryl unceremoniously tackled Ben.
The woolf’s jaws snapped at thin air, stumbling after its fruitless manoeuvre. It wasn’t disoriented for long though, or at least not as long as Darryl and Ben were. Sprawled out with the wind knocked out of the teen, and screaming regardless as his bad leg had violently been knocked into and thrashed around, he was completely disabled while Darryl was barely oriented and with his back turned to the predator.
Sparing a quick glance behind him, Darryl awkwardly kicked at the woolf’s face. The first kick merely grazed the abomination and the second missed completely, but the woolf made the mistake of trying to bite into Darryl’s foot for the third.
Both Darryl and the woolf yelped in pain as the manoeuvre succeeded, the woolf’s fangs piercing through Darryl’s shoes but Darryl landing the hit and delivering much of his kick right onto the woolf’s jaw and teeth. Then he jerked back, only for the fangs to remain stuck.
The woolf, immediately panicking, jerked back in animalistic fright to break free without comprehending that pulling just added to the pain and stressful situation.
Darryl, having the perk of being of a slightly more intelligent species, instead half-hopped the rest of his body closer to the woolf and tried kicking again. With the woolf pulling and him only gaining little room for momentum, it didn’t do much. But it did something.
Something that he presumed was the creature’s health. There was a yellow blip above the woolf’s head which flashed orange before returning to yellow again with every kick and violent jerk.
Then, with a sick tearing sound, the woolf freed itself. One of his teeth, the one that had embedded itself the deepest, was still stuck in Darryl’s shoe with bits of sinew still hanging from it. There were gashes and tears where the others had successfully torn themselves out, the odd grapple mostly having relied on that one tooth.
Darryl scrambled up as Ben still screamed under him, not sure how long it would take that thing to get back on the offensive and not eager to still have his back turned to it when that happened. He quickly dragged Ben back on his feet and tried to haul him away, the size difference making it very difficult to hold up the kid in this manner but not sparing the moment to get Ben on his back again.
The woolf snarled viciously and only looked more menacing with blood steadily running down its lip. It slowly bent over on its somehow clawed cloven feet to pounce, and jumped.
Not really in a position to properly dodge with his awkward load, Darryl instead tried to hop out of the way. Ben screamed louder than ever before when he landed on his bad foot, and it immediately gave out under him forcing Darryl to quickly support almost all of Ben’s weight.
And then he hobbled. He hobbled as fast as he could, not looking back to see if the woolf was chasing them. Behind him, one of the non-transformed sheep ominously bleated. Or maybe it was a regular bleat, but it just sounded scary in the context of what likely lay underneath.
Darryl didn’t care. He hobbled, pretty much carrying all of Ben’s weight while the teen just tried to hop and stay on his decent leg as best he could. His breath grew even more ragged and his face turned white as a sheet.
Then something tackled Darryl from behind, vicious fangs tearing wildly into his lower back and mostly getting stuck on his belt and jacket. Darryl could feel jolts of pain followed by a trickle of warm liquid running down his back, but he hoped those were just minor scratches. Thank god it was winter, he didn’t want to know what that monster would’ve done to his unprotected back.
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While the damage was limited, the tackle still served its main purpose. The moment the woolf ran into Darryl, the already unbalanced couple fell like bricks. All Darryl could do was shove Ben away to prevent the three of them ending up in one thrashing pile of limbs where the clawed monstrosity would likely come out on top.
“Bathroom!” Darryl screamed. “Close the door behind you! Don’t worry about me!”
The woolf didn’t wait, instead clawing its way up from Darryl’s lower back to his neck. Darryl could barely turn around and prevent those jaws from tearing into his most vital area, more so by his turning causing the woolf to fall than by any show of skill or brawn.
Not a second later and without even bothering to get solid footing, the woolf doubled their efforts by snapping at Darryl’s neck and face.
Darryl tried to grab the goat-face with the abnormally stretched jaw and fumbled to get a grip on the unfortunately mostly smooth and aerodynamic head. The woolf snarled angrily as Darryl’s thumb poked it in the eye while his other hand tried and failed to use their ear as a handhold. Too short, easily slipping out of his sweaty hands.
The woolf snapped at him again, their snarl an odd grumble as Darryl shoved his thumb down their throat as a last effort to keep the fangs at bay. At least the jaw proved a good handhold and he managed to slowly push the fangs away from his neck. He suppressed screaming as the jagged canine teeth mercilessly ground into his hand, and tried to jab his index finger into the woolf’s eye only for it to keep pushing undaunted. With his left hand he tried to push into the woolf’s nose hard enough to shove it away, but it just wrinkled up in discomfort before shrugging past.
Ben hadn’t answered, but after those tense few seconds Darryl could see the teen slowly crawl over to the bathroom. The kid’s movements looked woozy and slow, the pain likely putting him at the edge of consciousness.
But he was still conscious, and Darryl had managed to drop him just a step away from the bathroom door that they’d fortunately left open. If Ben would manage to haul himself onto the seat and close the door, he’d be safe. Safer, at least.
That one glance was all that Darryl could spare, before turning back to the vicious beast snapping at him. His blood was running down the woolf’s fangs, mixing with its own blood from the dislodged tooth and dripping royally onto Darryl’s face with every snap and bark of the creature.
The eye that his finger was jabbing into was blinking awkwardly, the thick sheep eyelid trying to cover the real eye and failing to squeeze itself underneath Darryl’s finger. Meanwhile the fangs were trying to gnaw his hand the best they could, and the awkwardly angled left hook punches merely seemed to annoy it as they bounced off its face.
The woolf shifted its footing to put more of its weight behind its head, and it immediately began to move its fangs closer to Darryl’s face mercilessly. It eagerly pushed, successfully resisting Darryl’s attempts to push its head aside. Darryl stopped punching and grabbed the head with both hands, trying to find purchase anywhere.
A drop of blood flew into his eye and blurred half his vision, only adding to the horror of the snapping fangs slowly looming ever closer. Darryl screamed defiantly, jerking and shoving blindly without avail. Then one of his fingers found purchase, and he squeezed down on it hopefully.
The woolf yelped and suddenly drew back as Darryl’s finger pushed into the open wound of its torn out fang, and like that he was suddenly free. He shoved the woolf further off of him.
The next second was a blur. He didn’t remember getting up and he wasn’t sure how far he’d backed off, but he felt he was on his feet. Staggering and woozy, but he was standing again. He roughly tried to rub the blood from his eye, smearing out the splashes and drops that covered his face, and looked at the white and grey blot that was the woolf.
The next second his eyes adjusted again, looking at the similarly dishevelled and rattled beast. It snarled, baring its fangs with a determination suggesting it was programmed more suicidally aggressive and unwilling to back down than the natural variant, if there was a natural variant of this thing, and already started to slowly circle Darryl.
Darryl, having nothing that could work as an improvised weapon and not knowing any combat style, took a fighting stance that resembled sumo wrestling. He breathed heavily and his arms were shaking, but he felt ready for another round if he really had to. And judging from the beast’s gaze, he really had to.
He quickly glanced over to Ben, seeing that the teen had since managed to drag himself into the bathroom but with the door still opened and his feet dangling outside, and back at the woolf again. Just a few more seconds and-
The woolf had seen his quick glance and was clearly reminded of the other human. It almost seemed to smile maliciously as it turned away from Darryl and slowly stalked towards Ben.
The boy, despite being half delirious, rummaged in his pocket and took out a key. It bounced off the woolf’s head without even distracting it much. The weakly thrown cellphone didn’t even reach its target, falling on the ground between the two of them with a cracking sound. Ben’s wallet too wasn’t thrown hard enough and merely bounced on the pavement fruitlessly. And then his pockets were empty.
Darryl didn’t bother checking his pockets. Instead he dashed at the woolf, intending to tackle it down to the ground. As he lunged though, the woolf dashed away and Darryl barely managed to hit its side with his shoulder.
Ben reached for the door handle, but the moment he shifted his weight he slumped over, his butt half sliding down into the toilet and his mind too muddled to react in time. His hand never even grazed the handle.
Despite being somewhat steered off course by its bum butted into, the woolf kept running and lunged forwards, its cloven claws outstretched and its maw wide open as it eagerly jumped at Ben.
And then it exploded.