Ellie

Teddy helped me as I wrapped a spare t-shirt around Wood’s gaping wound. That bunny monster had almost chewed straight through his arm. He was bleeding a lot. As soon as we got it wrapped up tight, we got Wood up on his feet and we all started going as fast as we could toward the railroad tracks, and Georgina’s side of town.

I'd told Oz to go find Mort. He didn't want to go at first. But I told him Mort was in a lot more trouble than we were. Which wasn't exactly a lie. But we were in pretty big trouble when it came to how much blood Wood had already lost.

We needed to get to Georgina’s house. Wood’s wound was far beyond our meager first aid abilities. And we hadn't picked up any healing scrolls or potions yet—if there was such a thing in this alien hell hole.

Wood was starting to get woozy, and Teddy was holding him up, Wood’s good arm wrapped around his brother’s shoulder.

I had to admit, I was distracted, worrying about Oz, and Mort. I don't know why I was so worried about those two. If any of us could take a beating and keep on going, it was Oz and Mort.

But when I heard the reptilian roar coming from the way we just came from, I was suddenly laser focused.

We were the ones in trouble.

“We need to get the hell to Georgina’s.” I said to Teddy. “And fast.”

Not only would she, hopefully, be able to heal him, but I was hoping she would be strong enough to rebuff the bunny monster.

Or, to at least shut her shadowland from letting the monster in.

I pulled my Negan bat out of my inventory and started looking around me, trying to hear if and when that big pink bunny monster was going to charge at us. There was no running away from it right now. Wood would not be running anytime soon.

Just then it started to rain. I blinked up at the sky. I’m sure it had rained since all this happened, but truthfully, I couldn’t remember if it had.

OK, get over it, it’s raining. I went to the other side of Wood, I was about to grab a hold of his other arm and throw it over my shoulders, then I saw that it was still bleeding. Grabbing hold of it would not be a good idea.

That’s when I heard it. The scrabbling of claws on asphalt.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

I called up my inventory box, and it showed the timer on this quest. We had a full 10 minutes left.

10 minutes…

All we needed to do was evade the damn pink bunny for 30 minutes. And there was no way we were going to keep that up for another ten minutes. Not with it now hot on our trail.

“Ellie,” Wood called out to me.

Keeping my eyes peeled, I moved over closer to the brothers. Wood stopped, and took his arm from around Teddy neck. I was sure he was about to say “Go on without me,” And there was no freaking way we were going do that.

But instead, he reached out and dropped a freaking grenade in my hand.

I blinked at him.

“When you’re going to use it, poll out the pin, wait three seconds, and then throw it.”

I gulped. I never thought in a million years I’d be… about to throw grenade at something.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Quick,” he said, and I could hear the exhaustion in his voice. “Put it in your inventory. I have more to give you.”

No time for reticence, I put it in my inventory under “weapons.” It’s all I could think to do at the time. And I did have a few handheld weapons in there already. Even a medieval shield—that was definitely just a reproduction leftover from a Renaissance fair.

He handed off another grenade, some kind of weird round bomb thing, and then a bunch of what looked like mini Hershey’s candy bars. He said that all I needed to do was throw these up close at something, and it would explode on impact. Or scatter them on the ground as we go and hope the thing lands on one.

His bleeding arm looked really bad, and I suddenly realized that it was dripping blood on the road. I looked back behind us and saw little dots of shimmering red forming a trail.

That lop-eared thing would be able to track us wherever we went because of that blood.

And that gave me a really bad idea.

I flipped through my inventory, searching for two things. I had thousands of things in my inventory. And I knew I definitely had one of them, but I wasn’t sure about the other.

But I found both. I pulled them out and then moved to Wood’s other side.

I started to pull the blood soaked T-shirt we had wrapped around his arm off. He started the protest, but I told him, “I have a plan.”

After I took off the T-shirt and threw it on the ground, I wrapped the new T-shirt around his bleeding arm, and then I took the large plastic Walmart bag and wrapped it up around his arm, tying it tightly at the top. As far as I could see all the blood that was Wood was covered by it. Hopefully that would keep him from putting off too much blood sent.

I bent down and grabbed the other blood-soaked t-shirt that was on the ground. I gave it a little squeeze and more blood splattered on the ground.

The brothers looked at me, their eyes wide.

“Get him to Georgina’s,” I barked out at Teddy.

“What are you doing?” Teddy asked, his eyes nervous.

I was running now. “I’m giving that thing a little detour.” And with that I ran off towards the east side of town, the side that had the huge pit that used to be the library, and some small foothills not far beyond that. I was going to run for all I was worth.

Every twenty or so feet, I would give the bloody shirt a squeeze, leaving a little splatter trail of blood-breadcrumbs for the monster.

I didn’t have to wonder long if this was going to work. Before I even saw the library’s still smoking pit, I heard the bunny, monster screech, and then kind of howl.

OK, the damn thing was catching up to me way too fast. Way faster than I was bargaining for. I laid on what little speed I had left. After all, I’m not at track star. But, since the aliens ended the world, I’d gotten a lot of running experience. I was a lot faster than the girl who got a straight C average in gym class for four years straight.

About 100 feet past the library crater, that’s when the foothills started roll up into the woods around town. I gave the shirt, another squeeze, but then I folded a few of those candy-bar sized bombs in the shirt, and then gently laid it down on the ground. When I stood back up, I started running again, ducking through the trees, almost tripping over roots as I made my way up, and up, and up.

Not even a minute later something exploded behind me.

I stopped, bracing myself against a tree, and looked back behind me. I saw the pink bunny monster. It was looking down at a mangled paw appendage. Black sticky blood was dripping of the ruined part of it.

Oh God… did that just work?

But then I saw that that black goo was starting the form into a new appendage.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

No wonder it was such a high-ranking little monster. It could regenerate almost immediately.

But little monster wasn’t exactly right. I think he was a good third bigger now since he started chasing after us.

Had he fed on someone?

OK, start running again! my mind screamed at me.

I started running up the hillside again, grabbing hold of trees to help pull myself up.

I heard the thing start running after me again. I guess its paw or hoof had grown back. I made it to the top of the hill, glancing back behind me and not seeing anything.

When my head turned back to where I was headed, that’s when I saw the bunny monster.

It had shot up around and past me, and was now on the top of the hill, and facing me.

Cutting me off.

My heart was beating so hard in my chest, and I was gasping for breath.

The bunny monster prancing across the ground, it’s open face of sharp teeth swinging back-and-forth, and its ears perked up and morbidly, cheerfully pink.

I pulled another grenade out of my inventory. Maybe I could blow its face up if it caught it in its jaws.

With my blood slick thumb I pulled out the pin, and waited the three long seconds before I flung it straight at the monster’s head.

The monster ducked, and the grenade flew right over top of him. It landed on the ground 4 to 5 feet behind him.

It’s long, slimy tongue slid out, and it licked its rows of sharp, sharp teeth.

My head was still counting down, though, and when it was a second before the grenade was going to explode, I threw myself to the ground.

Wood’s grenade blew up with quite a bit of force. And I felt it, and smelled a burnt smell.

I felt pieces of something falling over me. I glanced up, but the damn bunny monster still stood there, undeterred and seemingly hurt.

Damn it all to hell.