Fear ran through her as she carefully watched the thing with her periphery, though giggles leaked from her lips. Chuckled slipped through Mensha’s covered mouth as he glanced at it. A long thin spidery leg struck at the shadows next to the car it had struck, the impact silenced by the crowd. It was also brightly and violently pink. Scorching in the city’s dismal streets.

“Is it trying to kill the shades,” she struggled to swallow the laughter burbling up her throat. She turned to a trembling Mean and a short peal of laughter escaped.

Her eyes snapped to the creature, but she relaxed as It continued its indiscriminate stabbing march. She turned back at Mensha as mirthful tears ripped through his calm facade.

“I don’t think it’s worth the fighting.” Caution and amusement waged war across his features.

“Mensha I know you have questions, this is an excellent opportunity to test them, and can we risk having it around?” levity gave strength to her words.

He looked down and she. kept the creature in sight while he thought. “I do have some questions, though unless these things hunting us it’s probably better to ignore it.”

“Win some lose some.” She chuckled and sprung to her feet.

“Wait,” Mensha said and slid to the truck’s side mirror and pried it off. She shook her head and giggled at his antics. “To throw,” she took the offered item, and after one test throw.

Launched it, It shattered loudly on the partially obscured monster, setting glittering shards of glass into the air. She laughed as the creature plunged through the crowd at them before it could part.

Visible only when its limbs raised to strike it crashed into the truck, and laughter burbled in the chest as it struck wildly around it. “It noticed huh,”

“It has a very colorful personality.” A choked laugh echoed in his voice.

“You have no have no sense of humor.” She said through giggles.

“Well, it got you,”

She wandered between giggles and shaking laughter, as the crowd cleared around the creature. A collection of six spindly legs sprouted from the squashed form of what could’ve been a sheep. “Why sheep,” she giggled, “Do, do you think the red thing was a giant sheep,” She said trembling from more than laughter.

“Can you immobilize it,” Mensha asked his laughter made all the funnier by his attempt at restraint.

“I can,” she tittered and slipped her bat from her bag, and jumped onto its back. Fluff broke her fall as the creature jerked into the floor, She broke her bat into its nearest limb. It folded and the creature jolted. She sunk her fingers deep into its fur and merrily laughed as it bucked.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

She swung her bat as she slid up and down as its flailing legs cracked into the asphalt. Mensha’s cheers joined hers and she flashed a smile at him. Her bat was as effective as its scattered flailing with her poor leverage.

She screamed in the revelry as it darted into the crowd and swung her bat at a leg. She cheered as it lurched to a halt. Her grip slipped and she slammed into one of its legs, she grabbed it instead and kept swinging.

It darted in another direction, and she screamed as its pumping leg threw her up and down. She burst into light as the creatures scaled the truck. She smiled at Mensha as he sunk his knife into a joint and the creature fell, on top of her.

She released an empty lunged chuckled and crawled out. She grabbed the flailing leg she was holding and smashed the but of her bat into it until broke to reveal goey red.

Burbling and laughing, she walked away, “Victory!,” she cheered, at the beach that now resembled an abused spider.

Mensha slipped down the roof, he dropped on and dug his knife into the nearest leg’s joint. He jumped and twirled away as the only fully functioning limb flailed at where he was. The creature rocked with its two remaining legs, She wooped as he darted in for another stab.

It injured limb fell limp, and Mensha spent the next minute doing the same to its other. Before cutting and tearing off all its limbs.

she stood away from the creature as he disabled its two remaining limbs as they tried to drag the flipped creature away. Leaving a fluffy blob that oozed red goo.

“What are you going to do now,” she asked and pressed a hand to her hurting stomach.

“I want to see if it can sense people,” interrupted intermittently by laughter.

“What!”

“These.” A shock of laughter ran through him and he struggled to breathe. “These things don’t eat people,” he gasped for breath. “So I was thinking maybe they eat emotion or souls or something.”

“You know I said the world would end before you believed in ghosts, and I was right!”

“I guess you were right.” he chuckled through tired lungs and stepped to the creature, it shudder and crawled away undulating its limbless form.

She laughed at the killer brought so low. So many dead and now this. Tears came to her eyes.

Mensha walked around the car and returned with the other mirror. He banged it on the truck and she flinched at the sound. The pink thing only continued to try and crawl away.

He waved her over and they stood in its path, it changed direction, and they walked around the cleared space its aura brought. Laughing and leaning into each other as it tried to escape them.

Mensha wiped the mirror in front of it and it didn’t respond, only changing direction when it ran into it. He slumped to breath breathing raggedly between, bouts of hoarse laughter. “Where done Mensha.” She said through her cheer.

“I have a few more,” she pressed her hand into his shoulder as she struggled to keep her feet under her. “It’s barely a joke.”

He nodded and she stumbled towards it, a painful smile on her face. Its fur cushioned the blow, she hit harder. Nothing broke but jets of goo splurted from it. She lifted her foot and with mad revelry and a surging light she brought her foot down. It splattered like an over-full bottle.

Faint giggles slipped from her heaving chest, she stared at the dead thing the smile fell from her face. A chuckle brought it back and she looked away and turned to Mensha, a somber look on his face, as he struggled to gather his breath.

Summer slumped into the truck, and swallowed painfully, her throat her. She turned away from the monster, and noticed circular holes punched through the trucks metal walls