Kaleb found himself kneeling over his new friend. Mark’s armor was already getting soaked with blood, and he didn’t know what to do for him. Mark couldn’t even talk to him. His breath was choked and he barely seemed capable of forming a coherent sentence.
All hell was breaking loose around him. Everyone was looking for somewhere to run, and Diego was yelling something. But Kaleb couldn’t raise his eyes away from the man dying in his arms.
Mark was trying to say something but blood was bubbling out instead. He swallowed and took his time as Kaleb leaned closer with an ear. “Uhh… promised.” He raised his brows and widened his eyes at Kaleb as if to affirm his thoughts.
Kaleb barely registered it. He was stumped. He’d been trying to find something that could help Mark, but the ad-hoc first aid kit he’d brought could do nothing for his pierce lung.
Mark took a moment and said again, “You promised.”
Then he remembered. “Yes, yes,” Kaleb nodded as hard and clear as he could. “I remember my promise. I’ll look out for them, I swear.”
Mark coughed out some blood, and seemed to struggle down from his very throat to say, “go… live.” When Kaleb looked at him in hesitation, the latter nodded decisively.
Kaleb looked around him. The puppet, no, the monster was rolling back together, its pieces attracted as if by a magnet, and Kaleb heard something near him. He looked up and saw the finger that had been pointed at them moments ago stuck in a hole it had dug into the wall after going through Mark. It was vibrating now, digging itself out. Kaleb watched it free itself, fall to the ground and roll and tumble towards the monster.
Kaleb heard Diego yell in the mayhem of fleeing and freezing people. “We have to hack it into kindling before it can do anything. Come on!” Then he ran towards it with his mace and shield, some people following him, and the rest emboldened by the charge. They reached the creature as it finally made its body whole again. Diego bashed it with the mace at the same time one of the others hacked at it with an axe. Instead of the wood breaking, the whole creature flew away as expected of a light puppet when struck. It fell sprawled on the ground, yet whole and unbroken, then the pieces making its body began to roll on the ground, while stuck together, towards a cavern wall. The party chased it as Kaleb stood up and sought to join the fight, running towards the creature before it could do whatever it was about to. While rolling away, it pointed at them with a finger and everybody froze. There was no time to react. This time only the joints in its arm from the shoulder broke apart as the finger shot like a bullet. A yell echoed in the cavern as one of their group fell down clutching his knee.
From the sight he’d just witnessed, Kaleb realized that it was temporarily sacrificing its own body pieces to give momentum to whichever part of itself it wanted to use as ammunition, somehow. It didn’t make sense, but it was happening, and it had proven deadly once already.
Meanwhile, the creature had reached the wall and was rolling up the smooth surface, as if gravity wasn’t a thing. Kaleb reached the fallen man who was screaming while holding his broken and bloody knee. A wooden finger was digging itself out of the mess. It fell on the floor, and before it could roll away, as if by nudged instinct, Kaleb caught it. He worried it would pull and drag him through the cavern to its owner, but the pull was weaker than he’d expected and he fought it. The monster had reached the ceiling and rolled on it as if it was easy ground, still ignoring gravity. Then the pull on the wooden finger got stronger and he saw the creature shake and vibrate as if it was straining itself. Yet Kaleb kept a hold on it with all his strength. He might as well have been holding a bullet that it would sooner use against them. He wasn’t letting go. It finally surrendered the contest and the pull on the wooden finger returned to its passive state. Kaleb stuffed it in his belt, where he’d have some time to react if the creature decided to struggle for it again.
A state of panic was overtaking the group once more, and even Diego was pressing his lips together, eying the monster apprehensively as it did something.
“We can catch its pieces and trap them!” Kaleb yelled. Diego turned to him sharply, and Kaleb pulled down his belt and showed him the wooden finger while keeping it secure with the other hand. “We could make it useless.”
That seemed to hearten their leader enough, and he started yelling commands. Shields were raised and people over lapped them and never stopped moving, hoping to make difficult targets for the creature.
At the same time, the monster had begun standing upside down, and it was only then that Kaleb noticed that it had no toes on its feet, but fingers like the onest on its hands, and they were digging into the ceiling keeping it from falling. The spinning of its head was now done on shorter intervals and it seemed to track their movements somehow, spinning in this and that direction every other moment. Suddenly, its head disappeared, and its whole torso, arms included exploded into pieces.
Kaleb heard a shield splinter and scream of pain. He looked towards the victim with a trembling heart. It was Alex, who’d been hiding behind a peer’s shield. The side of the shield was obliterated, and Alex was stuck in the ground, his chest caved in. The shield-bearer was rooted in place, staring at the man who’d just been standing beside him. The wooden head was rolling itself free from the corpse, and it would have succeeded had Diego not yelled, “get it, goddamnit!”
The shield-bearer hesitated for a moment before throwing himself on it with his shield and keeping it there. He discarded his weapon and wrestled with the head while the monster shook and vibrated like it did during its struggle for the ginger Kaleb had liberated. In moments, several of the others were with the shieldbearer, holding down the wooden ball and wrapping it in something under Diego’s instructions. The fueling factor for this projectile, the torso and arm pieces of the creature had spread out too far for any of their members to be able to react, and they rolled back freely along the wall and back towards its body. Seeing an opportunity, one of their spearmen took off in a run and jumped as high as he could, hooking his spear between the legs that were now standing upside down alone on the ceiling, the rest of its body still enroute. He succeeded but only one of the creature's feet was pried from the stone, and its torso was returning fast.
The spearman was working himself free from his own attack at the same time another of their party decided there was an even better opportunity. He threw his weapon and shield away, which Kaleb commended in his mind for decisiveness, and he bolted for the cavern entrance. The only problem was that by the time the spearman had freed himself and retreated, and the creature’s body had come back together, the deserter was the closest one to it. Even as he closed in on the passage that had brought them in here, the monster pointed a whole hand at him, missing one finger, and then that whole arm exploded and four fingers buried themselves in the man’s back.
While killing their escaping companion, the monster had neglected to secure its loosened foot to the ceiling. Diego seemed to have seen the opportunity and dropped his shield, throwing his large mace two-handedly with all his strength, and accurately hitting the other foot. The monster lost its grip and fell from the ceiling.
Everyone had the same thought, charging towards it together. Bodies fell on top of it and shields bashed it. Kaleb was one of the last to get there, and was late enough to see a finger explode out of the back of a member of their shrinking party. The small group was buckling from fear until Diego yelled again. “We get it now or it gets us all! Pull the fucking thing apart and don’t let go!”
Kaleb caught the finger that was rolling back after killing the latest victim, and he saw Diego stuffing the four fingers from the man killed earlier somewhere in his armor. He hopped into the dogpile quickly.
As he joined the tug of war, it appeared that pulling the pieces away from the joints was much harder than denying them a return trip. The creature was struggling with them, and it was trying to get shots off, but people generally stayed away from its fingers, unless they saw an opportunity to pull them free without a risk. Thankfully, people were wise enough to treat the fingers on the feet as carefully as the ones on the remaining hand. Three of their party had managed to pull off a forearm and put it away. The other arm suddenly exploded into pieces, pelting those around it with a forearm, an upper arm and a round shoulder joint. The same three who’d successfully taken a forearm away from it had in their eagerness taken this misfortune of an explosive directly to their bodies.They were thrown back from the monster, no doubt with broken bones.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
It had, however, sacrificed the cohesion of its torso with its hip joints to give momentum to its explosive arm and it took Diego and Kaleb a moment to realize that it was finally truly helpless. There was still power in its legs to perhaps kill one of them, but it was almost done. Diego threw himself on the torso, which still had the other upper arm and shoulder joint. Kaleb meanwhile had thrown himself on the ground chasing the round hip joints. He caught them and stuffed them into his gambeson. Diego quickly got up and ran away with its torso, handing it to the broken trio to hug it while groaning. Then he ran back at the same time Kaleb saw the monster’s legs struggle to do something. Diego picked up his mace on the way, while Kaleb grabbed the upper parts of its legs.
Diego started beating on the foot-fingers two-handedly, which were rightfully the most threatening parts of the creature now. Kaleb felt the creature vibrate from time to time, and he got an idea. “Wait,” he called for Diego. The latter looked at him in grave inquiry. “A moment,” Kaleb requested, raising his chin in place of a pleading finger. Then he felt it vibrate again, no doubt struggling for its distant pieces. “Now!”
Diego hammered a foot, and several of its fingers scattered. He was on them in a moment, gathering them with the same manic hurry of a man who’d just had hundred dollar bills rain down on him in the street.
The shaking of the legs stopped and Kaleb yelled, “Careful!” It was only this warning that saved Diego from an all too familiar fate. He threw himself away with the two gathered fingers, abandoning the third, because the fourth and fifth had just fired off the monster’s assaulted foot and had been intent on killing him.
Taking advantage of the lightness of the monster’s lower body, Kaleb decided that it would be easier to pull the thighs he held away from the pieces it had discarded to fire off the fingers, namely the foot and the lower leg of the assaulted hand, He dragged it away as it struggled to pull them back, and this gave Diego time to make sure he was safe from another bombardment as he gathered the spread out pieces.
Something caught Kaleb’s eye and he cursed. “Look out! It’s trying to put the captured pieces together without this one. Diego was soon running between the scattered pieces like a mad man, burying them under bodies or loose stones. Once that was done, the thighs in Kaleb’s arms were sitting ducks. They still had one foot with its fingers, but it was much easier to avoid such a singular source of lethal danger. Kaleb and Diego were still mindful of a blunt attack like the one done to their three compatriots, but they managed to break it apart and spread the pieces.
It took them maybe a quarter of an hour to keep all the vibrating pieces in check but eventually they stopped struggling to get back together. And while prodding one of them after the monster stopped struggling, Kaleb realized something. He picked up an abandoned axe and hacked at a forearm, splitting it in two as one would split a dry branch. “It’s done,” he said, pointing at the broken limb. “Look.”
Diego quickly went around smashing apart each and every piece of the creature to splinters, and only then did he seem to relax.
They went to the fallen trio who’d each broken a different bone during the unexpected retaliation of the puppet. One of them had a cut on their face, and Kaleb took out his first aid kit from the bag to bandage him. Diego tried to help the other two stand up to see if they could walk. They were lucky as their leg bones were still intact. The same went for the one being bandaged by Kaleb.
“Who awakened?” Diego asked. Nobody answered.
“Come on,” he said. “Who did?
Kaleb tried to focus. There were multiple things that were supposed to happen once you awakened, yet he had felt none. He pulled up his sleeve to look for an inky star, and there was none. He shook his head as Diego looked at him. The latter turned to the three others and even pulled their sleeves up himself, yet there was nothing.
It took Kaleb a moment to register it, the clicking, the all too familiar goddamned clicking of wood on stone. It was coming from the entrance again. “God no,” he said.
“Fuck, fuck ,fuck,” Diego yelled as he heard it. “Get up!”
Their three injured quickly got to their feet despite the pain, each picking up a weapon for the inevitable hopeless battle.
Kaleb stepped up beside Diego. “We can’t fight another one,” he whispered.
“See any other choice?” the latter whispered back
Kaleb sighed and tightened his hand on the axe.
“We know it well now,” Diego said, louder this time. “We’re better prepared.”
“Hey!” a yell interrupted their desperately focused minds. They all turned around as one to look at the other end of the cavern. There, leaning against the stone was one of their number, the one who’d gotten a flying finger to the knee. He’d crawled away from the fighting, and he was gesturing beside him. “There’s a passage here. Help me up!”
Nobody hesitated. This would have been a lost fight, and they all knew it. They ran with all they had towards him. Kaleb had to help one of the three stragglers every other moment, and Diego was soon next to the knee-capped one and helping him up.
They ran and hobbled into the passage, its moss lighting their way if only slightly. Kaleb had heard the clicking sound echoing in the cavern soon after their entrance into the side passage, and it was now gaining on them, its menacing clicks getting louder and closer. The passage split into several smaller ones and Diego stopped at the spot. “We have to split up,” he said.
Kaleb pressed his lips. “No other way.”
Diego nodded. He kept the arm of their knee-capped companion around his neck and without much ceremony went into one of the passages. Kaleb turned to the three injured ones. He was conflicted. Taking any one of them with him would certainly delay him. “We can’t clump together, our chances drop to half,” he said. There were three other passages. He reckoned at least one of them would come with him, but they surprised him.
“You want to go alone,” the burliest one of them said, scoffing. “We get it. We’ll stay together though.” He looked at the others and they nodded. “Better chance that way if it ends up choosing us.”
With a lump in his throat, Kaleb nodded. Was that guilt that gripped his heart? He wondered as he streaked down one of the passages and left them to their luck. They’d go into another one, and whoever was luckiest of their little group could possibly survive. The clicking was ever present, but Kaleb’s own breaths filled his ears, and soon his heartbeat did too.
A few minutes later, he heard yells. He would have recognized Diego’s voice. It wasn’t him. He winced angrily and lowered his head, slowing down, then he shook it hopelessly and sped up again. The yells soon turned to screams and Kaleb felt a tear in his eye, but what could he have done. At least now he had a better chance. He had to make it back, if only just for Jane. He couldn’t leave her alone, no matter what. It was foolish to think she didn’t need him now. If anything, she couldn’t afford to lose anyone else. There was no telling how much worse she’d wind up with another loss. “I’ll come back. I’ll come back,” he repeated to himself, pushing his straining muscles. “Then we’ll find mom.”
Click. Click. Click
He heard it, fast, intense, and not too far behind him. Had he ever been into poetry? No, but something about this pulled memories out of him, smooth and serene, from his highschool days. “Are these your bells of death, so calm and clean yet firm?” It was a song in a thought, perhaps one concocted to calm down the maddened heart trying to beat itself out of his chest. It worked, somehow letting him take a breath that wasn’t so panicked and short.
Before the monster, the abomination, could catch up with him, the passage opened up showing him the end of his path. It was a cliff. He went to the edge without hesitation, looking down, seeking a chance, but he couldn’t see the bottom. To his right the wall curved out with a ledge, and he was left with two choices; jump down into the unknown and possibly break himself in half, or take the ledge.
He chose the ledge, throwing down his bag and shield, but keeping the axe in his belt. He stepped onto the ledge and moved sideways against the wall. There was a bend a small distance away, and if he got behind it, the monster might not be able to spot him, however doubtful that was. It’d hounded them for so long, and it had to have had a way to track them down.
Before he could reach the bend, movement caught his eye, and he looked back seeing the puppet-like abomination. It honed in on him and a hand was raised. However odd, Kaleb heard it before he saw it, flinching as the monster’s arm broke apart and a wooden finger took a strip of skin off his cheek.
The shock had made him freeze in place, yet its passing came with a manic traction of his feet in a bid to stay on the ledge yet move fast enough to survive the next bombardment. The wooden finger had fallen somewhere below into the darkness, while the rest of the monster’s arm put itself together. He saw it waiting for its ammunition to return, and he heard the finger clicking on the stone far below from the abyss as it moved back, but it seemed that the distance made the effort heavier as he saw the monster shake and vibrate as the other one had done while it’d struggled with him for its finger. He was already at the bend, but he pulled and propped against any protrusions in the wall around him before he managed to pick out a stone. He set his precariously positioned feet and threw it as hard as he could. It hit the wooden monster, and the latter took a step back as if in surprise, yet the clicking sound stopped as its attempts at pulling back its finger ceased. At least he’d done something.
He went around the bend, where his hopes were dashed. Even though he’d put an obstacle between himself and that mobile machine of death, he found that his ledge decided to blend back into the wall here. There was nowhere to go.
This game of survival wasn’t going to end soon. Or maybe it was.