Andy was snarling.

Dulguun growled.

Mau hissed vehemently.

The old woman stared the party down almost placidly, her lip twitching at the corner into a half-smirk.

With the demi-humans and bear cub's aggression visibly mounting, Suvdaa's bow creaked quietly as she raised it to aim, drawing the bowstring taut with an arrow nocked into place.

With Mau and Andy so close, she couldn't risk the shot but held it at the ready regardless.

"Well..." The woman murmured, her lips creeping apart into an unnaturally wide smile. "I can't get anything by you, can I?" She chuckled mirthlessly.

Mau yowled aggressively in response, her animal brain instincts telling her that everything about this crone was wrong and alien, and Andy slowly started backing down, teeth bared and eyes wide.

Both Mau and the crone exploded into action in the next instant.

Drawing her new mithril blade with a smooth, almost automatic nature, Mau took a vicious swing at the woman's neck. The clash of claws on metal resounded as the old woman caught the sharp end of the sword in her palm. It dug into the flesh and drew a trail of blood leaking down the crone's arm.

Mau was still almost feral, spitting and yowling as she flashed sharp teeth and gripped the hilt of her sword in both hands. She struggled with the woman's inhuman strength but managed to wrench her new sword free of the crone's grasp with the help of a firm kick to the gut.

The woman didn't even grunt as she stumbled backward from the impact.

"Ahh... Naughty, naughty kitty... Attacking an innocent old woman like that... Children like you deserve to be punished." She said with a mirthless chuckle as she shook out her bloody hand.

"Mithril though... Even naughtier. That cut me! I ought to take recompense out of your hide!"

The woman took a swipe at Mau, but she was too slow. In a flash of silver, the mithril sword neatly clipped off the crone's arm at the elbow, and Mau followed up with an efficient cut that took the woman's head clean off.

The crone collapsed to the bloody snow, and Mau quickly backed away several paces, breath ragged as her adrenaline surged. Andy and Dulguun stopped growling as soon as the woman was dead, and Mau slowly started to calm down as well.

"What was she?" Andy asked in a hushed and frightened tone.

Mau poked the corpse with her sword lightly and frowned.

"I'm not sure yet," Mau said.

Even dead, something felt wrong... Off... Very not right about the woman's corpse, and Suvdaa stepped in closer with a frown.

"The hell was that?" The raider asked. "We were trying to sneak out of town, and the three of you growl and yowl like frightened animals."

"You don't get it, Suvdaa," Andy said. "Us demi-humans can kind of... Tell when someone wants to hurt us. Just like an animal knows when a disaster is coming or someone has bad intentions." He explained while motioning at Dulguun.

"Fuuuuuck, is that what that was?" Mau huffed, heart rate slowing down. "It's like I knew she was some kind of monster or something." She muttered as Andy started to growl again.

Dulguun joined in shortly after, and Mau even began to realize that she felt that the woman wasn't quite entirely dead yet as a sense of animalistic dread overcame her once more.

Mau poked the corpse again out of habit, and it twitched.

The woman's severed head suddenly opened its eyes.

With a groaning, keening, alien cry, the head opened its mouth as the muscles of its severed neck stretched out like fingers, scrabbling the snowy ground as it picked itself up, the facial features distorting grotesquely as it gnashed sharp teeth at the air. The severed hand started dragging itself towards Dulguun, and the headless body jerked suddenly upright.

"... We should go," Penne said with a calmness that betrayed their quickening heartbeat.

Mau leaped back from the dismembered corpse with a yelp and drew her short blade.

The creature continued to cry out, and soon, it was joined by a chorus of equally sinister, keening cries howling on the wind.

"What the FUCK!" Mau blurted as the torso split down the middle and opened up a new maw as its ribs split apart at the sternum into jagged teeth, all three parts of what used to be the old woman dragging themselves towards the party hungrily.

"Quickly, back down the alley!" Suvdaa hissed, and no one questioned her as Mau, Andy, Penne, and Dulguun whirled on their heels to follow her lead down the back streets again at a full-tilt sprint. They ran for what felt like minutes before the town finally stopped wailing like a monster, and the party found some solace in a dead-end alleyway.

"This is The Thing!" Mau gasped as she sheathed her swords and planted her hands on her knees to catch her breath. "This is the fucking The Thing!"

"What thing are you talking about!?" Andy asked while panting like a dog.

"THE THING." Mau snapped. "From the movie The Thing! Ugh god. I have to explain that now."

The party spent a moment rallying themselves after witnessing a grotesque spectacle of body horror, catching their breath, and panting.

"We need to get out of this town; we don't know who is or isn't infected," Mau said through clenched teeth.

"Infected?" Suvdaa said, frowning. "Infected with what?"

"It's... It's a thing." Mau said after a beat.

"Yes, we know it's a thing. Apparently, it's the thing." Penne said from where they leaned against the alley wall.

"Look, I'll explain it later," Mau decided. "Let's just get the hell out of this city and get to those mines."

Everyone nodded in agreement. However, with a whole city full of monsters now awake and on alert for them, it likely wasn't going to be so easy.

Suvdaa pulled out the party's map and her compass and quickly assessed the direction they needed to take.

"If we go this way," she said, pointing down the next alley, "We'll be headed due west in the direction of the mines."

Mau unsheathed her swords while Andy and Penne brandished their staves.

"We move quickly and quietly," Suvdaa said. "And no stopping for anyone or anything other than each other." Again, everyone nodded in agreement as the party began to move.

Once again, Mau took the lead, moving quickly and quietly, feet barely making a sound on the snowy ground. Penne and Andy were next, crunching along much more loudly, while Suvdaa and Dulguun took up the rear, moving just as silently as Mau was.

The party weaved through the city's back streets, and they were lucky enough to not encounter anyone or anything like the old woman again, but they were on edge, hearts hammering in their chests as they went.

"Okay, so," Mau said, hushed. "If this is anything like The Thing, these things will hate fire."

"You really need to be more specific about this thing." Penne huffed. "But go on; they hate fire?"

"Yeah, so if you have any fire spells up your sleeve, now's the time to use them," Mau replied.

"The problem is," Mau continued, "That every part of their body will fight like an individual entity. Even if we cut them apart, that just makes it more of a hassle for us. So, fire really is the way to go. It should, in theory, kill 'em pretty fast."

Penne nodded. "I have some fire spells."

Andy pursed his lips, "And I know Divine Flame."

"It's better than nothing," Mau replied as Suvdaa glanced over her shoulder to ensure the team wasn't being followed.

"We're clear for now," Suvdaa said in a whisper. "But we should move quickly." She said, pointing out the figures of several clouds visible over the rooftops. "A storm will be coming soon. Maybe before evening. By nightfall, if we're lucky. It won't be easy to get to the mines navigating through that."

Mau nodded as she picked up her pace, tail flicking behind her.

"The last thing I want is to get caught in a blizzard while dealing with this body horror and nightmare bullshit," Mau grunted as she paused to peek around the corner of a building. There was another figure shambling through the snow down the street, and she held up a hand to halt the group.

She waited for the figure to shuffle out of sight into the darkness of an open door before she signaled to move again. The party broke out into a wide-open street, and immediately, Mau felt naked and exposed as she rushed to the alleyway across from the one they had just exited. Penne and Andy were hot on her heels while Suvdaa hung back with an arrow at the ready to snipe any sudden attacker that might come for them as they passed.

But Mau, the acolyte, and the hagling made it without incident.

When they reached the other side, Mau peeked back to ensure nothing had spotted them or would catch Suvdaa off guard. She paused for a beat with a hand held up in the signal to wait. She made the ' come ' gesture once she was sure nothing would present itself as an obstacle. Suvdaa nodded and sprinted across the street, Dulguun hot on her heels, until the party regrouped again.

Several more equally treacherous crossings were to be made, but the party eventually reached the city's outskirts without further incident.

Suvdaa frowned.

"The winds are blowing that storm right to us. We can't stay in the open; we may not make it to the mines in time," she pointed out.

Mau cursed under her breath and motioned for a nearby home with the door ajar. "Then we hunker down and wait for it to blow over. We don't have much choice."

Even Penne grimaced.

"I'd rather not remain around much longer with these... The Things possibly all over the town." They said.

Mau nodded and sighed, "Yeah, but our other option would be to freeze, and I don't like the odds on that. At least we can put up a fight if we have proper shelter."

The decision was made for them as the first tiny snowflakes started to fall and landed on hair and cloaks in a light dusting.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Inside," Suvdaa said decisively, and Mau retook the lead.

The inside of the house was dark, and the smears of dried blood on the floor were a foreboding sign of what happened to the prior occupants as Mau, Andy, Penne, Suvdaa, and Dulguun piled in. Andy shut the door and barred it.

Mau and Suvdaa quickly and efficiently swept the two-story home and found it devoid of life, which was good. Nothing would surprise them from the inside.

"We barricade in here until the storm blows over," Suvdaa said. "Andy, Penne, help me board up the windows, and Mau, stay on the lookout while we shore up the house's defenses."

Mau knew not to argue; Suvdaa was in her element. As a raider, Suvdaa knew the ins and outs of assaulting a defensible position and would use that knowledge to formulate a good defense.

"Yep," Mau replied as she moseyed up the stairs as quietly as a cat to keep a weather eye out through the second-story window.

It took much of the day to break down the house's furniture into workable barricades for the doors and first-story windows, and the team worked as quickly and quietly as they could, worrying more about preparing for an attack than the oncoming storm.

They didn't see the small crowd of figures hiding in the shadows watching them as they worked through the day as the sun began to fall...

❧

Night came much quicker than the party would have liked. Though they had managed to complete the defenses on the house. The windows were boarded up and shuttered, and the front and back doors were locked down tighter than Fort Knox.

With the curtains drawn and windows shuttered, the house was almost pitch black save for the faint and dim glow of a divine light spell Andy had cast for his and Suvdaa's sake, as their night sight wasn't as good as Mau's or Penne's.

Dulguun was sleeping peacefully in a pile of blankets, worn out by the day's excitement, and Mau was just coming down from the second floor.

"I swear I think I see something moving out there, but the blizzard makes it impossible to be sure."

The wind howled outside the house as the blizzard hit the city in full force, making the glass windows rattle and shudder against the wood defenses.

"I don't like that," Suvdaa replied. "If you think we're being watched, then it's highly likely that we are."

Mau nodded grimly. "We sleep in shifts as usual. Everyone gets ready for a fight at the first sign of anything unusual."

Penne frowned, and Andy grimaced, but everyone nodded in agreement. Finding any sleep was difficult, though, as Mau returned to the second floor to keep watch out the window for the first watch.

As much as Mau wanted to catch a nap, she knew that everyone's life hung in her hands, so she kept her keen eyes focused on the blizzard for any signs of motion.

It was a sobering feeling. Mau realized that her companions- her allies- were trusting her. They were trusting her with their very lives, and if she let them down, then everyone was going to die.

"Huh..." Mau mused to herself. "Never thought of it that way." She muttered.

"God..." She huffed as she leaned her head back against the window frame. How many lives had she gone through just... Not really thinking about her companions. For too long and too many lifetimes, she had never thought much about the lives of the people she journeyed with. But they were living, breathing, actual people with their own thoughts, desires, drives, and fears.

"Fuck." Mau grunted. These weren't NPCs in some fantasy video game. These were her friends.

"I'm such an idiot." The Hero grunted, rubbing their temples.

Mau had seen so much death in her many lives that losing a companion never really struck her as painfully as it did the first time. She had grown used to it, inured to it; she had lost and gone through too many travel partners to count that when one died, she simply soldiered on and killed the Demon Lord on her own.

Now? Now, Mau's heart hammered in her chest at the thought of something happening to Andy, Penne, or Suvdaa.

Mau was so engrossed in her thoughts that she almost didn't see the flicker of movement from the alley the house faced headed towards the house. She caught it at the last second and sat upright.

"Ah, whelp. So much for a quiet night." The catgirl grimaced as she crept away from the window and stormed down the stairs.

"Everyone up," Mau called up, earning a dissatisfied grunt from Andy as he rolled over. Mau booted him in the butt lightly, earning a yelp as the dogboy sat up. Suvdaa was already awake, knife clasped in hand as she eyed Mau.

"What is it?" Suvdaa asked tone hush and strained.

Penne rubbed their eyes and peeked out a crack in the nearby window blearily.

"Someone, or something, is-" Mau started to say when she was interrupted by a thump on the door. Everyone went still and silent.

"P-please... Let me in." Came a voice from the outside. "It's so cold, and they're chasing me... Please, you have to let me in!" The voice of a man muffled through the barricaded door.

Andy opened his mouth, but no words came out. He looked at Mau and Suvdaa, who held their fingers to their lips, making him whine in despair.

"Let me in, " the man outside pleaded, feebly banging on the door. "I'm freezing to death out here!"

Penne's golden eyes darted from Mau to Suvdaa and then to Andy before they shook their head.

The thumping continued, insistent and demanding, growing harder and harder as the man outside realized the party wouldn't budge.

"L-... Let me in..." He croaked. "LeT mE In...! OPeN thE DoOr!" He gurgled and howled as he hit the door with enough force to rattle it in the frame.

"Fuuuuuuck." Mau grimaced as the voice outside raised to a keening howl. "That's not good. That's not good at all." She grunted as she drew her long blade, hair prickling at the back of her neck as her ears pinned back.

Andy backed away from the door, covering his mouth with one hand to muffle the growl building in his throat.

The city's wailing cries soon joined the man outside the house, rising over the whistling winds that battered past the windows.

Mau dared to glance outside through a crack in the wood panels and barricades at the window by the door. The one man was banging on the house, but sure enough, she saw more figures starting to march out of the gloom of the pouring snow towards them.

"Guys... He's not alone." Mau whispered as she pulled her trusted old short sword from its sheath.

Suvdaa sighed.

"We did what we could with the defenses, but..." The raider girl trailed off, lips pursed into a thin and apprehensive line.

"But we're going to be in for a fight," Mau said, putting words to the other girls' thoughts as another voice joined the wailing man's, demanding to be let inside.

Soon, a chorus of hideous groans and wails sounded outside the door, banging on the walls and thumping against the heavy brick building.

A window pane shattered next. Though the wooden bars and planks across the window held firm, the crunch of glass underfoot outside could briefly be heard before a biting cold wind whistled through and between the planks. Surely enough, it wasn't the only window to break as thumps, bangs, grunts, and groans hit the house in force. Mau backed away from her window.

"Everyone form up! Center of the room, get ready for when they break through." She said, knowing it wasn't a matter of 'if' they break through.

The wooden reinforcements across the windows buckled and rattled as countless hands started trying to pull and pry them apart; an arrow whistled through the air as Suvdaa snapped off a shot that slipped through the barricades and hit a body outside with a meaty thwock. The injured creature outside screeched hideously in pain as it jerked away from the house.

Unfortunately, this did not deter the monstrous populace outside, who banged on the walls and windows with even more ferocity. The barricades buckled, and wooden planks rattled against where they were nailed into the windows. Soon enough, one of the barricades gave way. Wooden planks snapped and split, exploding inwards into the house with a spray of splinters and several bloodied arms and hands shoved through the cracks in the broken barrier, the wails outside growing in intensity.

Mau cursed under her breath and aimed at a gap in the wood with her palm.

"Firebolt!"

It was an old but reliable spell. With a small peal of thunder, a lancing bolt of fire launched from her hand, wriggling nimbly through the smashed boards to slam into a body outside. There was a wailing screech as Mau's target lit right up. Suddenly engulfed in a violent conflagration that sent the figure outside flailing and tumbling backward as it cried out in utter agony. Unfortunately, this lit up the area surrounding the flaming figure and revealed far too many more jerking and writhing bodies massed up outside as they shuffled away from their burning companion to give the smoldering body a wide berth.

"That's... A lot of them." Andy mumbled, knuckles white where he gripped his staff.

"Yeah, but I was right; they hate fire." Mau pointed out.

However, the small celebration of learning the monsters' weaknesses was short-lived. Another window busted inwards, the defensive wooden planks snapping brittly under the assault and press of so many bodies outside.

"They're going to get inside any minute now," Penne said through gritted teeth.

"Any second at this rate!" Suvdaa snapped back, turning her head as she heard one of the back windows shattering next. "And they're trying to flank us."

"Saw that coming," Mau said, considering her options as a window upstairs shattered loudly. And the THUNK of a ladder slamming against the side of the building could be heard. "Fuck!" She grunted, "I'll deal with that, defend the first floor." Mau ordered the others.

They nodded tensely before Mau darted up the stairs two at a time. She skidded to a halt in the upstairs bedroom and cursed again. There was definitely a ladder pressed against the side of the building. Glass shards decorated the floor, and a figure was already cresting the top of the ladder by the time Mau reached it.

Time seemed to slow down. Mau's vision blurred as she reached a hand out...

She casually pushed the ladder backward like a glass left too precariously close to the edge of a table to pass up. With a creaking groan of wood, it tipped back, standing straight up for a moment thanks to the weight of the bodies climbing it. Still, the ladder caved in and snapped under the combined weight as it teetered the rest of the way backward, several of the infected villagers landing hard enough to shatter bone and screeching in pain.

Mau aimed her palm out the window at the cluster of bodies and splintered wood to finish the job.

"Firebolt!" Another lashing lance of fire snapped from Mau's fingers to the pile of squirming bodies, catching the dry wood of the ladder and instantly setting them all off in a burst of heat.

"Oh fuck..." Mau muttered as she saw the sheer number of bodies crushing against the house she and her friends were doing their best to defend. There must have been at least a hundred or more. It wasn't going to be an easy night.

"MAU! GET BACK DOWN HERE, THEY'RE BREAKING THROUGH!" She heard Suvdaa boom from the first floor, and she wasted no time to rejoin her friends, practically sliding down the stair banister on her ass.

The first infected villager was already climbing through another newly opened window when her boots hit the floor. The man's eyes were a bloodshot, glowing red color, and he had an arrow embedded in his throat that didn't seem to bother him all that much.

"Divine Flame!" Andy called out, raising his staff. In the next second, the villager shrieked as his body erupted in gleaming, golden fire that pleasantly warmed the room's chill as the main flailed and went down smoldering.

Now, though, more of them were scrambling in through the broken windows, men and women with baleful red eyes and red-stained teeth and nails.

"Th'gnigitheh... Y'wingie cthhullgha!" Penne gurgled and raised their staff. A series of thick and inky black tentacles slithered into existence and slinked their way across an open window to seal it shut more permanently as the tentacles withered and hardened to stone afterward.

"Nice," Mau said as she swiped her mithril long sword to remove a man's head from his shoulders. "Can you do that again?"

"One more time, yeah," Penne answered as Mau jerked her head to the back of the house. "Go get the back window, Suvdaa; go with Penne while they do that; make sure they come back alive."

Suvdaa grunted affirmatively as she and Penne darted through the door to the back room, leaving Mau and Andy to deal with the flood pouring into the main living area.

Mau grimaced as the head she had just severed seconds ago took a leap at her throat as she batted it aside.

"For fuck's sake!" She groused as Andy lit the head ablaze in another flash of golden fire.

"Thanks for that!" She called to the dogboy. Andy nodded curtly, sweat beading on his brow as he smacked away a village woman with his staff, and a golden light passed through his weapon to the creature's body, making it spasm as he struck it with a holy smite.

Mau quickly slid into position to fight back-to-back with the young cleric, smoothly severing several more limbs in passing on her course.

When a burly infected villager lunged for her, she bumped Andy aside with her hip, tail flicking as she sidestepped nimbly away.

"Flamestrike!" Mau whispered, igniting her sword in a red-hot fire, searing clean through the man with a cleaving strike that split him in half where he stood.

The man's halves shrieked, several wiry, thin tendrils of muscle and blood trying to reach out from the wounds but ultimately dying off thanks to the heat and cautery of the slash.

For every villager Mau and Andy struck down with fire and holy attacks, another just clambered through the window, ready to join in the fun, and even Mau was starting to sweat by the time a cloud of jet-black fire surged through the door to the back room.

"Balefire!" Penne shouted as they surged through the door and engulfed another three villagers, instantly reducing them to ashes. Suvdaa was right on Penne's trail, though they both looked a little bloody.

"Back window is sealed." Suvdaa huffed, wiping at a gash on her brow to get some blood out of her eyes.

"Good!" Andy whined, "I was starting to get worried about you both back there!"

In an instant, Suvdaa and Penne joined Mau and Andy next, everyone covering a corner of the room, fighting back-to-back-to-back-to-back. Balefire and holy flames alternately painted the room in bright gold light and inky black shadow. At the same time, Mau's flaming blade added splashes of red to the mix, and the occasional twang of Suvdaa's bowstring sounded off as she snapped off another precision shot.

The fighting was endless, and the team tirelessly fought despite their mounting exhaustion.

Soon enough, though, the sun was rising through the shattered windows.

With a collective cry of dismay, the villagers began to retreat as the warmth of the sun's light started to spread over the snow.

One final hacking slash of Mau's sword split a woman in half diagonally from shoulder to hip before an exhausted Mau collapsed onto her ass with a grunt.

She would have nearly toppled backward if not for Penne also falling down at the same time, their backs pressing together and holding them upright as they panted and gasped for breath.

Andy dropped to his knees and promptly caught himself from falling forward on his palms with a gasp, sweat pouring off his brow to spatter the bloody floor as he looked ready to upheave the contents of his stomach.

Suvdaa slumped against the nearest wall, blue eyes blearily staring out the window at the retreating villagers.

"... The snowstorm stopped, at least." She said, tone laced with exhaustion.

"Fffffffuck meeeeee." Mau yowled as she tipped over and flopped onto her side. "I can't remember the last time I pulled a last stand like that." She coughed breathlessly.

"Do you... Do things like that for fun?" Penne asked, disbelieving, as they flopped onto Mau's back.

"I wouldn't call it 'fun'." Mau retorted.

"We can't stay here." Suvdaa pointed out. "I know we're tired, but we should probably get moving as fast as possible." She huffed.

"Sure... Sure..." Mau panted. "Just... Let me catch my breath a sec..." She said. "And then I'll be happy to get the fuck out of here."