I never thought I'd become desensitized to the brutal slaughter of human beings. However, after enduring repeated torture in a terrifying underground facility, hosting an alien inside me, and fighting for my life numerous times in a now lawless desert county, I've changed. The impending end of the world has a way of sharpening one's survival instincts, too. I once lived carefree, fascinated by black budget conspiracy theories and deep state secrets. I had a podcast and a YouTube channel—with sponsors! I was doing pretty well. Now, I’m hiding in a coat closet, waiting for Jim to open the front door to let in a group of men dead set on capturing me. And Xeno and I are dead set on doing whatever we need to not let that happen.

It’s dark in here and smells like a musty old nursing home. To my left are two coats, and to my right are a set of empty hangers. I have a shotgun strapped over my shoulder, locked and loaded.

The goal, of course, would be to send as many of them to paradise as possible. Desensitized as I am, I’m no fan of killing. And most of these fellows are probably just doing their jobs anyway. Except for Peter. And Rabbet. There’s something dark inside of those guys. It’s obvious in their smiles, and the way their eyes light up when someone gets hurt.

Xeno’s deadly appendage is already deployed. The snake-like whip of death hovers in the air above my palm ready to strike at his own discretion.

I hear the front door open and someone shouts at Jim to get on the ground.

Footsteps, scuffling. A thud. More footsteps.

“Where is he?” says a voice.

“He ran out back, please, he’s held me hostage here. I didn’t—”

“Capture, do not kill,” a voice orders.

More footsteps. The back door of the house squeals open and slams shut on its springs.

It’s nice to hear they’re not here to flat out murder me. I kind of knew that already but the confirmation gives me some much needed assurance and a boost of confidence.

More footsteps. “You, stay on the ground.”

“Okay, okay,” says Jim.

The plan is for Jim to betray me after he sends some of them on a wild goose chase out the back door, and he's executing it perfectly so far. I can hear him whispering to the rest of them; his voice is just loud enough for me to make out.

“He’s in the closet.”

Here we go.

More footsteps. These ones are tentative, slower. They grow louder as they approach. Two? Maybe three men?

The closet door whips open. I reach out with my left hand, grab the man's face, and send him to paradise in an instant. Bam.

The man behind him gasps as his companion vanishes and all his gear clatters to the floor. Despite orders not to shoot me, he acts on instinct, raising his gun.

Xeno snaps at him, latches onto the barrel, and yanks it away before he can pull the trigger, inadvertently pulling the man through the air towards me. He falls into my arms, like a bear hug, and I’m in contact with just enough skin to send the man. It’s a weird sensation, holding a man in your arms then having him disappear. I feel the momentum of his in his fatigues and equipment hit me before they scatter at my ankles.

That’s two I’ve avoided killing so far. How many more can go that smoothly, we’ll find out.

I make eye contact with Jim, who’s kneeling on the floor. He makes a quick head gesture towards the opening archway that leads into the kitchen just as two more men come around the corner.

The first aims and fires.

I’m hit in the stomach and shoulder. The impact throws me against the wall, knocking the wind out of me. I also knock a picture off the wall and a lamp to the carpet with a crash. The pain is so great I lose consciousness for maybe a split second and slump over onto the arm of the couch, unable to make any sound or even breath.

I feel my hand recoil as Xeno sends a glob of acid at the man’s face. It hits right in the center of his forehead just under his protective headgear.

His head recoils; he reaches for his face and screams. There would be no saving that guy. The dude behind him retreats back into the kitchen, probably to reconsider his choice of profession.

That gives me a minute to allow my lungs to reinflate and check for holes in my body. I lift my shirt to reveal a welt to size it a baseball, but no gaping wound.

“Rubber pellets,” says Jim, who is standing over me now. He takes my shotgun off my shoulder, and helps me to my feet, just as the man in the kitchen spins around, lets out a guttural battle cry, and rains a hail storm of rubber down on both of us.

Two hit Jim, sending him back onto the couch. At the same moment, Jim, either intentionally or unintentionally, I’m not sure, blows a basketball sized hole in the ceiling just above the attackers head. A pile of wood debris and old installation showers the man.

I yank myself to my feet, let out a battle cry of my own, or more of an exaggerated squeak given my lungs are still partially collapsed, and run towards the distracted man. By the time he looks up at me, registers my approach, and processes any kind of response, it’s too late to react. I slam into him, and he trips backwards. Together we tumble into the kitchen. I feel Xeno whip around but I’m able to grab the guy’s neck and send him before the alien does any damage.

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Xeno slither-snaps back inside my palm.

“I sense three more in the backyard, and two more out front,” says the alien, as the screams from acid-face go silent and his kicking feet fall still.

I get to my feet, cough, cough again. “We’re trying not to kill them, remember?”

“Oh, sure, right,” says Xeno, flatly. “Maybe if we just ask them really nicely—I don’t have much room for discretion here, Jack!”

At that moment, Xeno snaps out of my hand so fast he nearly dislocates my shoulder, punching a hole the size of a fist through the center of the wooden back door. I hear a muffled yelp then a thud, as Xeno latches on to someone and slams their body so hard and so fast against the exterior of the door that dust poofs off the molding above it. Then he does it again, and again and again:

Thunk, thud, Ooof, thunk-crack.

The final time splits the door in half and the man flies inside the home towards me, hits the floor and slides to my feet, completely unconscious.

“Holy …” comes Jim’s voice from behind me, as I bend down and send the man off.

“Jack?” comes a voice from the backyard.

I know that voice. That growly, condescending, rough voice.

“Thing 1?” I say. “Is that you?” I move to get better visibility of the backyard, hiding behind what’s left of the doorframe. There are thick trees everywhere. They could be hiding behind any one of them.

“We don't have to do it this way,” says another voice.

That voice I recognize as well.

“Are you back there too, Peter?” I say.

“Wherever you go, Jack, someone will always be hunting you,” says Peter. “Be amicable, and let’s work something out.”

“Ooh, that’s a fun word,” says Xeno. “Amicable. Amic…a…ble.”

“You know, the world is ending right?” I shout back. “This whole thing is pointless. Let me send you to a new world where life is—”

The front door of the home bursts open. I spin around to find two men charging inside. The first tosses a smoke canister in my direction, which instantly pops with a flash at my feet. Just as smoke begins to billow out of it, I feel Xeno shoot out of my palm. He bites into the side of the can and lobs the puffing object back in their direction. It hits one of the men in the groin just as the other unloads a round, then a second of rubber balls in my direction.

I dive behind the kitchen table to avoid the full brunt of it, but one of the balls hits me in the side of the butt cheek so hard it makes me barrel roll in the air before hitting the ground.

“Ouh,” I say, rolling onto my back. “Now that one hurt.”

Xeno slithers out and curls up on the underside of the table. For a second it looks like he’s attempting to hide there, wrapped around a leg. Then, with a shove, he flips the solid wooden table over onto its side, just as more rounds of rubber bullets fill the kitchen.

They pepper the table’s surface, bouncing off in all directions.

With one more vicious thrust that spins me onto my side, Xeno sends the table sailing through air, over the length of the kitchen, slamming into bone and flesh. There’s an audible grunt and crunch that follows, and the table splits into pieces.

Xeno snaps back into my hand. “Why do I feel like I’m doing all the work here?”

I get up, then duck with a “nope” just in time to dodge a rubber bullet that sails over my head and pings off the fridge behind me. Apparently the table only got one of them.

Where is Jim?

The remaining attacker retreats behind a corner, so I take that moment to lunge in his general direction with a roar, my right arm extended.

Xeno takes the cue and bursts forth. His appendage makes a sharp ninety degree turn in mid air and I hear a soft thunk and a squeak. As I step onto the remains of the shattered table, Xeno wraps his length around the man like an anaconda, lifts him up, turns him upside down, and power slams the poor man cranium-first into the linoleum tiles like a WWE wrestler. Then he does it again. And just one more time for kicks before letting the body flop limp onto the floor.

I run over to both the men. One is table crushed and the other definitely has a concussion, despite his headgear, and might also have a broken neck. Both are moaning and twitching. I sigh and send them both on as quickly as possible.

Just then, Peter appears in the back doorway. I only have a half second to register his presence before he tackles me head on.

We slide through the archway and back into the living room, only halting when we hit acid-face’s corpse.

Xeno whips out of my hand and lunges for Peter, but the man jerks out of the way and catches Xeno in mid air, with his bare hand.

Xeno seems to take that as a challenge, however, and wraps his girth around Peter’s forearm. With a quick jerk upward, Xeno sends Peter straight up into the hole that Jim blew out of the ceiling. The man slips into the gaping hole nicely until he’s about waist deep before getting stuck.

Xeno snaps back into my hand as I get to my feet. For a moment I just stare up at the furiously kicking feet. If anything, it’s comical.

“There’s a joke to be made here,” says Xeno.

“Oh definitely,” I say. “I just can’t think of—”

“Jack, behind you!” Xeno screams, just as Rabbet jumps on my back, taking me down, slamming me face first to the floor.

I feel Xeno extend himself and whip around. However, Rabbet is prepared for this. In one swift movement he grabs Xeno’s extended shaft with one hand, and slams a knife down into the floor, slicing Xeno’s black snake appendage clean off.

Black ichor sprays from the severed tendril as the remains slither back inside my hand.

“Xeno!” I shout, as I struggle to twist around and free myself from the much larger, much heavier man on top of me.

“Ouch!” says the alien with a gurgle, as the lips swallow up the severed limb. “That hurt.”

Rabbet punches me in the back of the head and I feel my nose crunch against the floor. The impact sends shockwaves of pain through my whole body and stars light up in my vision. I try to twist around again, but the big man has me pinned down prone. I feel Rabbet cock his arm back about to deliver another blow when—Bang!

I feel Rabbet fly off of me and hit the wall.

I scurry away and to my feet to find Jim with the shotgun, still pointed in Rabbet’s direction. I look over at the man I so lovingly referred to as Thing 1, or what remains of him, and that expired milk does a twirl in my belly.

Jim puts the gun down and lets out a heavy sigh.

I’m breathing heavily myself, I realize. I feel my nose. It’s bleeding, but it’s not broken, I don’t think.

“That’s the last of them,” says Xeno. “For now anyway.”

I look at my palm. “Xeno he … you … he sliced you in ha—”

“I’m fine,” he says. “Just a flesh wound.” Black ichor gushes out of the lips, and he says, “Well, maybe a little more than that but it doesn’t matter anyway.” Gush, gush,

I look at Jim. “He’s dying. You’re dying, Xeno! I can feel it.”

“Well, then let’s hurry this up then, shall we? Get that crystal so we can finally send me back to my star. After this, I want nothing more to do with you psychotic little monkeys.”