Everyone sat inside the police station all night. The owner of the service station paced around and acted like a guard. He needed some comfortability, an aspect of control he could latch onto after yesterday. Nick knew that well enough, he could see it through his body language.
Jamie and Nick talked for a bit to pass the time, Jamie went on for hours about construction work back in his home country. How some workers would wear sandals instead of proper protection, how some fixed power polls during a storm, all of it. Jamie laughed about how absurd it all was at the time. But in an odd way he missed that absurdity.
Nick didn’t pay attention, his mind drifted as he tried to figure out the motive of the monster that attacked. Nick struggled to grasp the intelligence of the creature, he denied that anything could have the intelligence to attack their infrastructure and rationalised that it was just a big coincidence that it destroyed everything of importance. No, perhaps I’m overthinking it. He reasoned, I just hope help arrives soon.
The station owner looked at his watch, ‘it’s close to midnight. I don’t think it is coming.’
‘You think it’s safe to go outside?’ Jamie questioned.
‘No, but it’s good that it didn’t come back.’
I suppose it is, Nick thought as he sat down. He felt exhausted, his eyes heavy while his vision defocused a few times. Yet he couldn’t fall asleep, even if he tried to. The smell of rotten meat, the gore of humanity and its warm wetness was fresh on his mind. Despite all of that, his legs were ready to spring into action and run if needed, his arms felt heavy but flinched at the slightest movement. The constant dance of vigilance and terror made Nick in a cyclical state of flight, freeze, and dread.
Everyone jolted as they heard glass shattered outside. Most picked up their guns, their hands shook on the trigger. Nick stood up, his heart picked up like a spooked animal.
The beast clawed the stone wall outside, the tiles cracked as the creature jumped onto the roof. Everyone held their breath for a moment as they heard the creature sniff.
It knew they were inside. It salivated, it even smiled as it slowly dug through the roof. Nick noticed from the window as chunks of tile fell to the ground. It’s toying with us!
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Jamie panicked, he could tell what the creature was doing. Thinking there was an opening, he fired his shotgun into the air, deafening everyone in the room.
Nick's ears rang as he kneeled to the ground, he looked up to see his horror. The creature poked its head through the hole, its face was black and cat-like, its eyes undeniably human, yet it smiled back at the people below. It opened its mouth, its teeth yellow and rotten. Green smoke slowly fell to the ground as it was spewed from the mouth of the monster.
Everyone fired their guns at the creature, yet it did nothing but chip away at the roof. Nick tried to push the barricade out of the way so he could run out. But he was wasting time. In the chaos, Nick jumped through the window using his right shoulder as a battering ram, just before the creature fell through the roof. Blood splattered with every slash of its claw, bone cracked under its jaws, joints popped as their limbs were dislodged from their bodies, it did it so it could silence their screams.
Nick hopped up from the ground and ran to the pub. Ignoring the glass that was stuck to his clothes and cutting his right arm. The only safe place he knew.
‘Wait!’
Nick turned around to the voice of Jamie, only to see the creature on the roof of the police station. Even in pitch darkness, Nick could tell what it looked like. It had the body of a dingo, its hind legs were that of a red kangaroo, and their front legs were like emu legs with a paw at the end of each of them. The thick and oily hair on its back dangled down like tree vines, the rainbow feathers on its neck slithered and rattled as the creature’s throat expanded like a frog. It had the tail of a shark with crocodilian-like scales on the base.
Nick bolted to the pub as the creature chased him. As soon as he went inside, he ran upstairs to one of the guest rooms and slammed the door behind him. The creature banged against it, immediately leaving a large crack on it.
As it slowly clawed at the door to toy with its prey. ‘Open the door!’ The creature demanded in Jamie’s voice. Nick knew he had nowhere else to go, but down. He opened the window and tried to climb down, but during the panic, he slipped and fell through the roof of the residential room below and banged his head on the floor. Knocking him out cold.
The creature burst into the room and rushed to the window, to see the unconscious Nick. The cut on his arm made a pool of blood, which convinced the monster that the human was dead. No need to kill what is already slain.