“My name’s NatHuRgHk!!!” A brown and white blur slammed the boy into the cement from behind before Andy could call out a warning. Though it wouldn’t have mattered much as he barely saw it moving from behind the kid’s SUV himself. It seemed that they could adjust their camouflage given enough time, though that little revelation would have to be explored later.
The creature began swiping long bloody furrows down the kids’ body, even as he howled for help. Andy rose to one knee, swung his weapon up until the laser light was roughly center mass on the creature’s body. Then he jerked the trigger rapidly, losing count as it flinched with the staccato impact of 5.56mm bullets slapping across its torso. Green blood blossomed from at least a dozen holes. It stumbled sideways off the kids’ body, then slumped to the ground in a vain struggle to keep moving.
“Fuck you!”, He placed the laser on the side of the creatures’ head, just behind its petals, and pulled the trigger twice more. He quickly scanned the area for more after watching as green blood and chunks of some pink fleshy substance he assumed passed for its brain splattered the concrete on the other side of where it fell.
He stared at the kid on the ground, surprised when he saw his chest struggling to rise with strangled breaths. Blood pooled around him, and Andy knew he was dead, his brain just hadn’t realized it yet. Not sensing anymore of the creatures nearby, he shuffled over to kneel next the kid.
“Damn it. I’m sorry.” The kid whose name might be Nathan, just nodded painfully, acceptance of his fate resolved in his pale blue eyes. He stared into the sky for several seconds before his breathing stopped. Andy placed a hand on his shoulder, gave a silent prayer, then resolved himself.
“Alright, time to make the hunters, the hunted.” Initially he wanted to attempt to bypass the sub-division turned monster nest, maybe loot some targets of opportunity. Watching the kid get mauled to death in front of him had flipped a switch in his brain. Now he was going to make it his life’s mission to perpetrate an ass-faced-nightmare-creature genocide. At least, for the foreseeable future.
He sat there watching the creature, trying to puzzle out why he didn’t detect this one. The only thing he could reason was that the creature wasn’t tracking him. Either it was going for the closest target of opportunity, or it had determined the kid to be the less dangerous prey. Had he made an impact on the creatures as a whole? Or only the ones that have witnessed him efficiently dispatching their brethren? Questions that would need to be answered another time as his most recent kill was beginning to glow as all his others had before.
For a moment he considered running, instead his logical mind won out bracing him for what was to come. Rather than try to escape his fate, he paid attention this time. Unlike the last two times where the energy was in a holding pattern, this time it speared straight for him. As well, rather than probing around his body, it slowed gently before slipping into his nostrils and mouth. The seizing fire he’d expected didn’t come, but instead was replaced by a gentle warming that seemed to reach into the outer edges of his soul.
He inhaled deeply as the final vestiges of the creature’s energy merged with his body. All the time before, it felt like the energy centered in his brain, just behind his eyes, now only a portion of the energy went there, the rest trickled into his joints. Fire blossomed from his feet to shoulders, focusing particularly on his ankles, knees, wrists, and fingers. It didn’t hurt so much, as it soothed though his ligaments and tendons. When it finished, he released a heavy breath, then twisted his torso with a loud, satisfying crack.
“Holy shit. That. That was good.” He flexed his fingers for a few moments, reveling in the lack of stiffness he felt. He hadn’t realized just how used up his body was from his time in the military. As his Drill Sergeant would say, he just “sucked it up and drove on.” He stepped away from the carnage with more confidence in his movement. He felt better than he’d felt in years, longer than he could remember.
With a look towards the gate that led to the back of the house he only had one thought, “This could get addicting. Wonder if there is too much of a good thing?”
Quickly allowing his mind to focus on his sense he confirmed that nothing was currently hunting him. With more confidence than he felt before he walked quietly and quickly to the fence, now much more eager to breath in the alien life energy. In the back of his mind, he was certain it would give him some kind of alien cancer, though, the more he absorbed, the more he understood some of the changes it was making to him. And he liked it.
He pushed through the gate, the barrel of his rifle leading around the corner, just in case. He found the first creature he killed slumped on the ground in a puddle of green blood, clearly dead for a while. He approached it slowly, bracing for the rush of energy. When nothing came, he frowned slightly, then noticed a slight glimmer of energy floating away from the creature. A few whisps trickled limply in his direction, sinking into his body leaving barely more than an itchy feeling in his nose.
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“Huh, guess there’s a time limit. Wonder where it all goes.” He shrugged.
With a cursory look around the back yard finding nothing of interest, he turned to head back out onto the road again. That’s when his sense flared in alarm. As if in slow motion a hidden ass-faced monster burst through the fence on his right in a shower of wooden splinters, sending him pin wheeling in shock. He fell on his back awkwardly, now facing the direction he had just come from, and somehow managed to keep a tenuous grip on his rifle.
He scurried backwards with his legs pistoning furiously as he panic-stroked the trigger of his weapon. None of the rounds fired struck his target, all flying wide, chipping wall plaster, fence planks, and sending chunks of dirt into the air. The sound of the weapon barking so close to the rampaging creature did cause it to flinch with each retort, however.
Andy gathered a breath, then painted the creature with the attached flashlight/laser combo and proceeded to take steadier measured shots. The creature screeched in pain before taking a final step his direction where it fell over dead. He rolled to one knee, just as another pair of monsters burst through the gap created by the previous one, kicking up rooster tails of dry rock and sand as they sprinted to their next potential meal. He dropped the lead one with a trio of shots through the face. The third began to zig-zag between the fence and side of the house, fouling his aim.
It made a final lunge, bouncing off the side of the wall to swipe a nasty set of claws across his chest. He managed to raise his rifle a moment too late. The attack glanced off the guard of his rifle, slamming him into the hard packed dirt. This time he didn’t maintain control of his weapon, losing sight of it as he rolled across the ground. The creature landed ten feet away, clicking noises emanating from its throat.
He scrambled until his back was against the wall, fumbling for the pistol on his thigh. Before he could finish drawing the weapon the creature lunged forward digging a clawed paw into his shoulder. He screamed in pain as the petals around the creatures’ mouth hole peeled back. Its breath smelled exactly how its face looked, like ass. He tried and failed to hold his breath between spasms of pain. It clicked furiously into the air, it’s mouth hole spasming in a rhythmic motion. If I survive, I want to forget all of this!
He realized as his sense flared that it was calling more monsters onto his position. Fuck that! He pushed through the pain, shucked the pistol from his thigh and tilted it up into the bottom of its neck. He cried out in pain as it flinched in surprise, twisting the claw in his opposite shoulder. Then he emptied the magazine into the creature as quickly as he could pull the trigger. There was no need to aim with the muzzle pressed into its sticky wet neck. He pumped at least half of the seventeen-round magazine into his attacker before it disengaged in fear, sending the remaining rounds to sail harmlessly into the air.
Before it hit the ground dead, the first pair of monsters had already begun glowing brightly. A torrent of energy flooded into him. Rather than spread through his body like all the times before it stabbed straight into several open wounds he hadn’t noticed before. He was pretty sure he could see his sternum briefly before the energy began impossibly knitting his wounds together.
“GAH! FUCK! Fuuuuuh!!” Pain wracked his body as it was forcibly repaired. Between gasps of pain, he glanced at the puddle of blood around him in confusion. Finally the pain ceased, allowing him to really look at the aftermath of what surely would have meant his eventual death. His shirt was shredded, and his pants didn’t look much better. The re-knit flesh was a sticky pink. He thought the worst was over when the most recently dead monster’s energy furiously shot into him, seizing on his freshly wounded form.
“SON OF A..!” Judging by the concentration of fiery energy coursing through his veins he assumed it was now quickly, forcibly, replacing the blood he’d left on the ground all around him. When it had all finished, he felt as if he’d been wrung dry. He stared numbly at the broken fence for several long moments before an urgent pulsing behind his eyes demanded his attention. More monsters were on the way, sensing his weakened state.
Time to get up Andy. Time to go to work. With a combined mental and physical sigh, he pushed shakily to his feet. A quick look found his rifle laying on the ground several feet closer to the front gate. He scooped it up, did a quick visual inspection that left him highly unsatisfied. The light/laser combo had been ripped its mount, and the optic was cracked in the front. A quick function check later and he was stumbling out the gate to the driveway.
His senses were slowly catching up to the information his sense was trying to feed him. He looked around, not seeing any of the dozen threats lighting up his brain. “MOVE WITH A PURPOSE PRIVATE!" An echo of his time in basic training filtered into his consciousness.
“Yeah, okay.” He looked down at the rifle in his hands one more time, flipped the quick release on the optic simply letting it fall to the ground. It was useless to him now and he didn’t expect that he would replace it anytime soon. He snapped the back up sights into position and hoped they still held zero.
For a misguided moment he considered moving forward down the street in a mad attempt to claim the essence of the other two monsters he’d killed. Recalling how little he received for his very first kill in this fight, he vetoed himself.
“Okay, need to find a place to hunker down. Make these fuckers come to…” Before he could finish the thought, a massive clicking roar reverberated through the sub-division, more felt than heard, somehow vibrating his teeth in his mouth. His sense flared at the same time he looked down the road. Multiple sources of loud slapping flesh, click like chittering, and guttural heaving erupted shortly before the largest monster he’d seen so far padded nonchalantly around the side of a house some three hundred meters away. It was almost as big as his truck, and coated pitch black. A pack of smaller monsters hounded its flanks, coated in various colors mimicking the terrain around them, all snapping and clicking at each other.