Novels2Search

Chapter 1

[T:0]

There is a downward slanted meadow, just below a wall consisting entirely of a flat faced cliff. A beam of light hits the middle of the meadow and shadows of human shape, hidden by the beam of light, can be seen. From this light a shadow within the light starts to form. That shadow then begins to take form, the shape slowly starting to resemble that of a humanoid. And finally the human figures make their way out of the light, stumbling as if they were caught off guard, or something unexpected had happened. They gaze bewildered at the scene surrounding them, as more humans come out from the beam of light. They too are bewildered and are at a loss of what to think or do. They wander around the edge of the slant, careful not to wander and stray far from the light that keeps bringing more and more people.

The amount of people that manifests from the beam of light differs, from one person appearing to sometimes even a group of five. And the approximate time it takes for a group to step out of the light seems to take from seven to twelve minutes. After about an hour, around two dozen people have stepped out of the light.

There is chattering and some shouting here and there, as each person asks the other if they know what is going on. Each and every person they ask answers back that they are just as clueless as everyone else.

One of them who had fallen out of the light and came into the world on his knees recounted, “We felt empty inside. Dumbstruck. We didn’t know what to think or feel. It was as if this new world was too great, too vast. And the problems and issues I had… or We had, were miniscule to the sublimity of this new world. As if they were too little to compare; for my mind to even fathom that they mattered anymore. It felt like nothing but this world mattered now, and it was an omen of great struggles to come.”

[T: 3 Hours]

Several hours have passed and some braver individuals go in groups into the forest at the edge of the meadow, away from the cliffs. By now there are more than fifty and less than eighty people, many still cautious and afraid to venture away from the light, intent on being with as many people as possible, for various reasons of their own.

Nearly all of them have formed smaller groups, sitting down like it is a picnic, choosing groups they feel comfortable with or reasons of their own, only a few individuals going back and forth between each group. The majority of talks are no longer about asking if anyone knows what is going on, but where on earth they think they are, the purpose of the light, who brought them here, and what they are supposed to do here. The smarter ones talk about food, water and shelter but no one is certain enough or confident enough to address the issue. Here and there, people agree that the lack of a source of sustenance and shelter could be an issue, but many are content to still wait it out.

[T: 5 Hours]

There is a large hall, all dark with only the center of the hall lit up by some odd color of light. Many figures in hooded clothes have their arms raised, holding a coin of some kind of bluish transparent material. The coin itself emits a pale blue light. They stretch out their arms further as if offering the coin to the light floating in the hall.

[T: 7 Hours]

There are over a hundred people now. The sun had started to set a little while ago and it is getting dark. There is a stick drawing of an ugly rat-like creature, drawn by a little boy with a stick. No one has had any food or water. They have all decided to wait until morning to set out and look around. The mood of imminent danger has started to set in. They don’t know what to do.

[T: 8 Hours]

It has gotten dark and there is no light. Their phones have no reception or signal. Once or twice a flash goes around where a person periodically checks their phone.

Somewhere in the forest, in the dark, a young man is wading through some bushes. He’s muttering and cursing that he can’t see and asking what the hell is going on. He bumps into something. He stops and pushes aside the bushes. He sees the demonic monster resembling a Pikachu. He’s stunned and just stares. The Pikachu is around three and a half feet tall. The demonic Pikachu drools a little and opens its mouth.

[T: 19 Hours]

During the night more people were brought in by the beam of light. The rate at which people spawned had dropped, but there were too many to count.

Light began to appear as dawn approached. People have started getting up. Many are hungry and thirsty. They are tired, not used to the wilderness. Their clothes are damp from sleeping on the grass. Already people have started talking once more. A group of men were already gathered and some of the more confident and slightly more masculine (but still feminine) women joined the discussion.

A man in a red shirt and red cap was talking with another man with a golden beard and golden military cut. Red and Gold had their arms crossed with Gold having a more serious expression and looking slightly down towards the ground.

Red: We don’t have any food. We don’t have any water. We gotta go now to at least find a nearby water source. Food we can survive without for a week. Water we won’t last three days. Everyone needs to look.

Gold: Yes, you’re right. But we also have to go in a group. We don’t know where we are. It’s to ensure as much safety as possible and ensure that less people get lost.

Black man with glasses: So maybe we go in teams of three?

Black military man: There’s too much of us for that. I’d say teams of three, with three teams working together. So a total of maybe nine, where they can keep track of each other by having a sense that they are teams of threes working in a group of three teams.

Gold: So… 3 by 3?

Black military man: I guess?

Fit White Woman in tracksuit: So do we meet back here then?

Red: Yeah. That beam of light that keeps bringing more of us here is the easiest to spot. Everything here looks the same except that constant beam of light.

The two Asian men in suits nodded and the black cap couple nodded as well.

Red: Ok, then get everyone gathered up here and I’ll tell them the plan and ask them to participate.

In a nearby bush, between the meadow and the forest there was a demonic pikachu with half a person already in their mouth.

The people, from the group discussing, split off and pushed people towards Red and the people already lost took little convincing to group up. Red told the entire group about having no food no water, what the best course of action was and how they were going to do it. With no other solutions and seeing the reason and logic, the people just started doing as Red asked of them.

They started forming groups, the more confident and capable looking people banding together with other confident and capable looking people, while those more on the incapable side were left remaining and these grouped together.

Noticeable was that military people tended to prefer to group with each other. Then the more athletic and fit people would group with each other. If there were families they would group together. The rest was a mix and match.

But not all people were grouped up. These people had for some reason decided not to group up, nor show any signs that they were going to help or do anything for that matter. Many of them scrawny and thin, wearing black skinny jean edgy clothing. There was a group of black men dressed in gangster clothes but they just sat there, looking at all the people eager to do something about their situation. There was a gang of Hispanic men wearing gang clothes, also doing the exact same thing. There were men wearing female clothes and makeup, fat and obese women, fat and obese men. The incapable and unwilling.

Red: All right it looks like everyone who is coming is in a group. Now remember we need to look for food and water. Water is what we need the most and should be the easiest to spot. Food is what we need less than water, but none of us, or most of us don’t know what food looks like. We find something like food or water, you come straight back here. That’s it. Let's spread out and stretch our search far. We got this beam of light that’s our landmark, so it’ll serve as our main rendezvous point.

He looked once over the groups and said, “Let’s go!”

All the groups started walking, spreading out. Since there were so many people and so many groups they could still see each other even while they spread.

But then a scream rang out. Then gunshots were heard. The groups were in the forest. They couldn’t see all the groups, only the groups that were closeby. The trees obscured the rest of the other groups from their vision. Everyone had the same thoughts. What’s going on?!

The people still at the meadow and the beam of light also heard screams and gunshots. The gangsters all stood up, Black and Hispanic, The scrawny edgy people sort of turned around while still sitting down in the direction of the screams and gunshots. Some obese people struggled to stand up, while others remained sitting. One of the men wearing women’s clothing was pacing back and forth, biting their nails.

People started running into the meadow; looking shaken, agitated and lost. They looked around the meadow with a dark and fearful look, before running to the center of the meadow. The people who never left the meadow stare at them, then look towards the direction they had run from, then look back at the fleeing people. Then from the bushes the monsters resembling Demonic Pikachus appeared, waddling a little like a duck, their short arms (with long dangerous claws) outstretched. With small, beady black button-like eyes they stared at the people, drooling. People just stared. They just stared. The people who had just run out of the forest looked terrified.

One of the Pikachus reached one of the people standing at the edge of the group. The guy was looking with a stunned look in his eyes as the words, “What the fuck is thi-” came out of his mouth before the Pikachu grasped him with its claws penetrating parts of his body, and shoved him into its mouth. The guy was still struggling, his body halfway inside the Demonic Pikachus mouth before it bit down. A crunch could be heard and the body spasmed once before going limp. Someone gasped in a low voice, “Oh god…”.

Some of the people started getting up, others in shock with their mouths open. Those who got up quickly sprinted a couple steps away and turned around to look some more, uncertain of what to do except to keep some distance away from the Demonic Pikachus. The obese people had a hard time getting up.

While the first Demonic Pikachu was still crunching away, the other Demonic Pikachus moved closer to the group, drool dripping down to the ground.

The people closest to the Demonic Pikachu stepped back from the approaching monsters. All their attention was on the monsters.

[T: 19 Hours]

Everyone near the Beam of Light was still staring in fear and shock, still uncertain what they should do, as the other Demonic Yellow Rats approached them, leaving the first Monster to continue eating away at its prey. A person close to the edge of the meadow turned and sprinted away towards the forest. A couple of other people followed and they disappeared into the forest. As they ran through the forest, Yellow Rats popped out of bushes and ambushed the runners, using their claws to skewer their victims and pull them into their mouths. Their screams from the distance alerted everyone to the fact that there were monsters in that direction coming towards them as well.

The Yellow Rats were edging closer and closer and many unfortunate obese people were still unable to get up, while others had scurried away. A obese man was trying to push backwards on his butt, trying to scoot away as a Yellow Rat came near his feet. He kicked as the Yellow Rat had raised one of his waddling feet and the monster fell down. The Obese man scooted a few centimeters away more. His face distorted beyond any face a human could ever make. The monster that fell rolled on its side and crawled towards him. The obese man started crying, bawling out, “No No Please. NO!” He started making Heeeee Heeeee sounds as he cried, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to dieeeee….” Heeeee HEEEEEE! The monster reached his feet, put one of his legs in his mouth and started crunching away. The obese man yelled out, “Ahhhhhhhh” half screaming, half wailing. The obese man turned on his side and raised his arm towards the horrified crowd.

“Somebody PLEASE. Heeeee Heeeeee. Help…. Heee Heeee” He was still crying uncontrollably as the monster started chewing up his leg.

One of the black gangsters pulled out a pistol. “Man fuck this shit”, he yelled and started emptying his magazine into the monster. The shots hit the monster chewing on the Obese man, their impacts making visible damage to the monster, blood shooting out of the wounds. The shots only briefly stunned the monster and it resumed chewing up the leg after a second or two. It made low growl like mumble noises as it continued eating, the rest of its body seemingly limp.

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The gangster just looked for a second, still slightly unbelieving that his bullets hadn’t stopped the monster from continuing to eat. He emptied the magazine out of his pistol, reached towards one of his feet and pulled out a spare magazine.

Two other monsters were approaching closer and the black gangster yelled to his gang members, “Ayo, I wanna see what the fuck is up. Make sure they don’t pay attention to me.”

The other black gangsters pulled out their guns. The hispanic gangsters pulled out their guns too.

The black gangster who had already used up his first magazine and had inserted his spare magazine, this time shot another shot before waiting a bit, focusing on the reaction of the monster. He got a little closer. The other black gangsters shot a couple of shots into the other monsters to get their attention.

He saw the monster still weakly chewing on the crying obese man's leg. There was a pause as the black gangster looked at the monster. This fucker seems weak, he thought. He got out a knife, approached the monster, circled around him to the monster's back so that the claws weren’t in reach of him.

The other black gangsters were slowly leading the two monsters away from him, shooting them once or twice at a time. “Ey, you good over there?”, one of them yelled.

“Yeh, I’m good”, he yelled back. He sat down on the monster's back. The monster gave no indication or response to him being on its back, it continued chewing. The black gangster stared for a moment at the monster, his facial expression a bit dark and very serious.

He suddenly stabbed down on the neck of the monster and pulled the knife out as suddenly as he had stabbed it. Then he stabbed the neck a second time as blood spurted out of the first wound. Then he stabbed it a third time. He pulled out the knife and made a movement as if he was going to stab it a fourth time but stopped to see the response of the monster. From the bullet wounds and the knife wounds there was a lot of blood, but the monster kept chewing.

“Fuck”, he muttered under his breath, “You tenacious as hell, you god damn is.” He lifted the knife back and swung the knife hard from right to left. He had a pause, gathering power and swung in the opposite direction he had first swung, giving a small grunt. Then he swung from the side again, grunting.He had been focusing on one particular spot on the neck, each swing making the gash bigger and bigger, like a butcher's cut. Each time he swung and each time the gash got bigger, more and more blood just flooded out.

The monster at that moment sort of gave up, deflating a bit, and stopped chewing. The black gangster looked for a moment and got up. “Shit, that was some work. But you ain’t nothing is you? You bleed like the rest of them, you die like the rest of them.” He turned to his gang. “Ey, this one’s dead. No need to worry about me.”

“Then why don’t you give your brothers a hand here”, one of them yelled as he shot another shot. “This one ain’t fucken dying”.

“Alright”, the black gangster said, “alright”, he nodded his head looking around at the ground as if he lost something. He suddenly sprinted towards one of the monsters, jumped on its back and just started stabbing it. It fell down and he kept stabbing and slashing at it. It died the same way the first monster had died.

“You see the mother fucker”, he yelled, “you see that”? He turned with his arms outstretched towards the hispanic gangsters. Then he pointed at the monster still stumbling towards one of his black brothers and then pointing at the first monster that was still eating at the edge of the clearing. Then he turned his head toward the hispanic gangsters again, “When are you bitches gonna do something”, he asked loudly. “We doin’ all the work. Fucken do something”, he said.

One of the hispanic gangsters, bald with a mustache looked at his brothers, made a shrug and beckoned for the others to follow. He said to some of his gang, “Ey you get that bitch over there”, indicating to the very first monster still chewing on the very first guy. He then sort of walked towards the monster still going after the black gangster. He moved his gun to the left hand and pulled out a knife, as he circled around towards the back of the monster.

As he reached the monster’s back he clenched his mouth, tilted his head back and opened his eyes wide as he pulled the knife back. He slashed as hard as he could and took a step back. Large amounts of blood spilled out of the large gash. The monster turned around towards the bald hispanic gangster with a mustache.

The black gangster who had killed two monsters raised his arm, let it down, shook his head while looking down and paced back and forth, “C’mon man, gotta get in there real deep. Do it real fast if you have to.”

The hispanic gangster sucked in his cheeks glanced at the black gangsters, then motioned at two of his buddies, “Go fuck it up from behind”, he said. “Don’t stop till it's dead”. The two didn’t say anything, one of them rubbing his chin and looking distant before they started circling around. As the black gangsters watched the two circle around, five hispanic gangsters were on the other monster hacking wildly at it with their knife, like it was a stray dog they were beating. The lower portion of the dead guy's body was on the ground, bloodied, and the monster was also on the ground itself. It didn’t seem to be doing anything to defend itself.

The two hispanic gangsters were still circling around the last monster that was focused on the hispanic gang leader and stumbling towards him. While they were doing that the Beam of Light spawned out another group of unfortunate individuals, this time an entire family of six. An old man, his son, his son’s wife, one male in his mid to late teens, one little girl and a boy around four years old.

[T: 20 Hours]

The sight they beheld as they spawned in was hellish in nature. The landscape was full of greenery, a meadow the size of a football field maybe slightly larger than that, surrounded by bushes and beyond those bushes the forest. They looked down the hill, saw the lower remains of a body, an obese man; one of his legs swallowed up by a dead Yellow Rat Monster, saw the five hispanic gangsters still beating on the body of a monster, saw another dead monster more towards the center of the clearing, and another badly wounded monster stumbling towards a bald hispanic man with a mustache holding a knife. And they saw two other hispanic men circling around the back of the last monster.

The mother clung to her husband, face full of fear, the husband holding onto her as well. The young man’s eyes were wide open and his sister clung onto him. And the young toddler just didn’t compute what was going on, his eyes looking blank, neither interested nor disinterested. The old grandpa on the other hand didn’t seem too bothered, simply alert and looking.

The black gang leader laughed and commented, “Well shit. We got some new blood. Look at 'em all looking fresh and all that. They are in for some hell on paradise. He shouted at the newcomers, “Take a good look at what you’re about to see here. ‘Cuz this is the only time you’re going to have to get ready for this place right here.” He indicated the last monster alive being led by the Hispanic gang leader, followed up by the other two members of his gang slowly approaching it. The black gangster smirked one last time at the newcomers before looking back and giving his attention to the takedown of the last monster. The two hispanic gangsters reached the monster, positioned directly behind it. They both took a breath and raised their knives and swung down hard. They didn’t wait around for the monster to respond and they just kept swinging their blades as if they were swinging a machete, even though the knives were smaller than that, the power of their swings allowing for their knives to cleave straight through the flesh of the monster's neck. The monster stopped, shuddered once and fell and its blood emptied out like a bucket had toppled over and spilled its watery contents.

“Not bad, not bad”, the black gang leader shrugged. “It could be better”, then he turned to the newcomers once more and yelled, “ and that’s how it's done. Remember that. And remember this. You ain’t in your comfortable cities, with your comfortable jobs no more. You in the jungle just like the rest of us.”

The family looked at the gangster and did not respond. To the side, the once bawling obese man whose leg had been chewed upon by the now dead monster was facedown on the floor with no sign of life. The dead monster was still holding the leg in its mouth.

The family stood in shock still processing what had happened. They just saw something that looked like a giant demonic version of a yellow rat, from a certain children’s television show. They saw that monster die, and the people killing it acting like it was nothing new to them. They saw another group of five gangsters beating on another monster with a blood lust no sane human would ever emit. They saw the bodies of two people on the far side of the meadow, one of them missing their upper portion of the body, the other with one of its legs in the mouth of another dead monster. Now they had a deranged man across the field; yelling, shouting and smirking at them. To the family, these people didn’t look human. “They are like wild beasts”, the husband thought, “animals”.

But the old man, the father of the husband, remembered his days when he served in the Vietnam War. As he saw the same sights the rest of his family saw he was reminded of the hellish time he spent in that god forsaken land. The smell of burnt flesh. The humans that looked like demons. The demons who killed his comrades and attacked him again and again and again, day after day, night after night. During the same time that his son had thought that they looked like animals, the old man's face had hardened. “Cockroaches”, he thought.

The deranged man continued yelling at them for a second or two, before they heard a scream. Everyone turned their heads around to the sound. One of the people on the opposite side of the field, opposite from where the monsters had chased them, was caught by a monster, their claws piercing the person. Suddenly where there are a lot of bushes, monsters start crawling out standing up. This time it isn’t just four or five monsters. It’s dozens of monsters, with more coming out of the forest.

The black gangster who was yelling at the newcomers looks at the amount of monsters. He shakes his head and starts walking backwards. “Man fuck this shit, I’m out”, he yells, then turns and starts running towards the western part of the meadow. He runs only to find out that monsters are also coming out from that direction as well. Then from the direction from the first group of monsters that the gangsters defeated, the south side of the meadow, monsters appear from there as well. They are surrounded from all three directions with the Beam of Light and the Eastern Cliff Mountain Wall behind them.

The group of monsters from the north, who had the element of surprise, manage to grab several people. They are struggling and screaming in pain as the monsters prevent them from getting away with their long claws. They try to push away the monsters with their arms if they could, but can’t as the monsters start chomping on them. As the terrified victims are being eaten the monsters without prey move past the monsters with prey, towards the fleeing humans to find prey of their own.

By this time both the black gangsters and the hispanic gangsters have banded together and are hacking their way out through the west side. The large group of humans who have noticed this follow after them, leaving behind those that are incapable of moving very well, such as the obese, crippled and old.

And even then the crowd of people is just too large and the gangsters can only cut a narrow path barely just for themselves, as taking down a monster takes at least three of them to kill without increasing the risk of taking casualties. The gangsters all have similar thoughts as they notice the crowd of people following after them. That these useless sacks of meat are annoying. Like flies. And since their only priority is to get out, they don’t work to cut a good path for others, they only cut enough for they, themselves, to slowly move forward. Inch by inch.

The pressure mounts up as the monsters get closer and closer, faster than the rate at which the gangsters can clear. A few gangsters get caught and these start using the guns they weren’t previously using point blank into the faces of the monsters. But as the monsters die, the gangsters that were previously caught cannot be easily pulled out from the claws and they quickly die, their weapons collected by some of the braver souls of the crowd. And these people who reclaim the weapons of the now deceased gangsters join the hacking as now necessity forces them to join the fight to survive. With haunted eyes and terrified expressions, these once useless and unwilling individuals join the fight.

Yet these individuals are more likely to fall than the gangsters who know how to fight and how to use the knives to deal fatal damage. But the crowd has no choice as the screams get closer and closer and someone new has to step up, or die.

The old man from the new group that came through the Beam of Light comes forward pushing through everyone, and since all of them are unwilling, he pushes through easily and grabs a machete and a pistol from a dying gangster. His son; the husband, father to his grandchildren, says, “Dad”? He moves forward, but his wife holds onto him, preventing him from going. The son can only watch, with his wife holding onto his arm.

From the perspective of the son, the father stands tall with a machete in right hand, pistol in left, despite his old age looking powerful. And slowly the old man walks forward towards the monsters.

The old man with his expression dark yet lacking emotions approaches the closest monster, which is currently occupied with a gangster backing away from it, as another gangster at the monster's flank had already had made an attempt at killing the monster. The monster still bleeding from its wound was slowly making its way towards the gangster, ignoring the gangster that had dealt it a wound, more interested in the prey it was about to obtain.

Without a word, the old man raises his machete in his right hand, winding it past his left shoulder, then releases it. The slash hits the monster hard, immediately removing a large portion of its neck. The monster stops, turns toward the old man, looks at him for a second and falls as all its blood simply escapes from its body.

The two gangsters the old man just saved just sort of gawk at him; eyes wide open, unable to say a word, forgetting that they are fighting for their lives. They could feel the power of the swing and the destruction caused by it and are incapable of thinking about anything but that. The old man doesn’t even look at them and walks toward another monster chasing a gangster who is backing up, slashing wildly, while two others are stalking the monster around slashing at it.

He approaches right next to the flank of the monster and raises his right arm. The monster doesn’t even look at him. The old man swings down in an overhead diagonal swing, letting the power of gravity and the force of his muscles to strike down. The swing opens up the monster's neck, the half of the neck struck by the swing utterly disconnected. This time the monster doesn’t even look at its attacker. It simply stops with only half its neck and falls flat on the ground.

The old man once more simply just walks away, leaving the three gangsters staring after him looking confused.

The old man continues going after monsters whose attentions are already occupied chasing others, never directly confronting the monsters head on. Slowly but surely he makes a path towards the forest.

But of course there are only weapons enough for around twenty people and thus only twenty can fight. And since two to three people are needed to fight a monster, where one person distracts and the others slowly kill it from the sides and back, only around seven to ten monsters can be fought at a time. Fortunately finding the space to flank around is not a problem as the monsters are slow, so they can take their time.

But it simply isn’t enough to make a path for the couple hundred people crowding behind them. And a few of the monsters have caught up, reaching the edges of the crowd from all around, grasping at the unfortunate few and killing them.

It is at this moment of time another group is spawned from the Beam of Light. Three of them. One male, two females. While the majority of the monsters are focused on the tight crowd of a couple hundred humans, some of those closer to the Beam of Light make their way for the newcomers. The newcomers are surrounded. The man who just arrived starts to run, running between the monsters towards the southern part of the field. As he swerves around and past them, they turn as well, a good dozen marching after him. And the man escapes further and further towards the forest.

The crowd sees this.The crowd has no more room. They are trapped with nowhere to go. The crowd has no weapons to fight the monsters. They are slowly being eaten alive as more and more monsters reach them. The faces of the crowd are full of desperation and terror. The crowd breaks and shatters, running in the direction of the gangsters. They run past the people fighting the monsters with weapons. They take their chances hoping that they are fast enough to outrun the monsters.

They run towards the spread out horde of monsters from the west side of the field. Some get caught, giving others behind them the opportunity to run past the now occupied monster. Others make it to the forest. The fighters break as well running towards the forest, many of the monsters in front of them distracted and occupied. As everyone runs past him the black gang leader pauses for a bit taking in the scene. Then the black gang leader gives a loud “Ha” and runs as well.

The two girls that just arrived from the Beam of Light that was abandoned by their male acquaintances are dead. Skewered.

The crowd pushes and pushes, with the monsters closely behind them.The mother, daughter in law of the old man fighting the monsters, holds her toddler in her arms as the hysteric crowd pushes and knocks her around. A man runs full sprint bowling into her, as he runs to escape a monster closely following him. The woman gets knocked down and falls to the ground, the toddler escaping from her arms and rolling away. The toddler bumps into something. The toddler gets up, sees something standing over it and looks up. The monster that was chasing the man who knocked down the woman looks down at the toddler. The toddler is frozen a bit and the monster crouches down. It opens its mouth. The toddler looks one last time at the mother, helpless to act and looking to his mother for directions, who screams as the toddler is eaten by the monster.

The mother scrambles toward her child, trying to rescue him but the husband runs to her and grabs her, preventing her from getting eaten by the monster as well, holding her. The mother is wailing and sobbing her face in her hands and the eyes peering through her fingers are wide and unfocused, tears flowing from them. The husband drags his wife away, and tells his oldest son, “Tim hold onto your sister”, then cries out in a desperate voice, “Dad” at the old man.

The old man turns; sees his daughter in law, hears the desperation in his son's voice and sees what looks like a demonic yellow rat eating his grandchild. There is visible fury in the man's eyes. With clenched teeth, he strides over to the monster. Two other monsters nearby, that have been satisfied with the demise of their prey, have noticed him and make their way towards him.

The old man reaches the monster eating his grandchild, raises his weapon and starts to swing. But he gets surprised by a claw coming at him from his right side, forcing him to move backwards. He still attempts the swing as he moves backwards. The swing misses its target and wounds the monster in the eye.

The old man pauses to look in the direction of the claw, but is surprised by another claw coming from his left. He backs off a bit and two monsters come from the sides, next to the monster eating. The old man glares at the three monsters nearly side by side. A confrontation is impossible now. More and more monsters are getting closer and the old man concludes that there is nothing he can do now. He grits his teeth, turns and walks past his son. The son stares after him.

The old man turns and tells his son, “We have to go, there is nothing we can do now.” The son sees the rage and anger in his eyes and also understands that there is nothing that can be done. He turns to Tim and tells him, “Hold onto your sister and follow”. He guides his wife, who is now in shock and says to her, “Honey, we got to go. We gotta make sure Tim and Angela get out safely.” His wife looks into his eyes for a moment, her own eyes still slightly unfocused. She nods.

They make their way past the dead and the to be dead. Both the monsters and the people being eaten by them. They make their way into the forest where they find some more monsters eating people. As they get further and further into the forest, Angela turns and looks one last time behind her as she runs with her brother.

And she sees the monster with one eye bleeding, still eating her baby brother.

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