Chapter 1: The Scruffy Stranger

The smoke was suffocating; I ran as best I could down the stairs, trying my best to stay standing. Something had sent the head from the statue of liberty flying past my building till it smashed down in the street over a dozen blocks away. Moments later there had been explosions as several buildings collapsed. Flaming debris had hit my building and I knew it was time to get out. But the elevators were offline. The main stairwell was blocked as was the stairwell at the east end. It had been almost an hour since the building had been damaged and I still couldn't find my way out.

I had finally found a set of stairs that weren't blocked off with debris, but when I got to the main floor I couldn't get out, something was blocking the door. Undaunted I continued downwards to the parking garage. I searched around for the exit in the dark. I felt like I could here rats scurrying about in the dark, but as I looked around I couldn't see any. Finally I could see a glimmer of light, it was the exit. I ran as fast as I could towards it. As I round it sounded as if something was following along behind me.

I looked behind but I still couldn't see anything. Suddenly I felt a hand grab me and I was being pulled along much faster.

"Move faster!" the voice belonging to the hand yelled at me.

I was completely stunned, but fortunately my body responded on its own and began moving faster. I glanced at the person who had grabbed me. He was tall, around 6'3 to 6'4 but he was rail thin. He was wearing a t-shirt that said Rated-R on it and black pants. He was covered it dust from what I guess was building's collapsing. He had a pair of half rim glasses on and he looked as if he hadn't shaved in a couple of weeks. He was carrying something at his hip, but I couldn't see what it was. He glanced back and then shoved me forward.

I stumbled forward for several steps before I tripped and rolled to a stop I looked back to see what he was doing. He had come to a stop at the top of the ramp out of the garage and was wielding what he had been holding. Now I could see clearly that it was some sort of sword. He was peering into the darkness of the garage as if he could see something. Suddenly something leaped out of the darkness at him. With lightening fast reflexes he raised the sword up in between himself and the creature. The creature didn't have chance to avoid it and it literally split in half as it met the sword splattering green-grey gore all over the place.

The stranger pulled off his glasses, glanced at them for a moment and then tossed them aside.

"Are you okay?" he asked me.

"Yeah I'm fine," I replied. "What was that thing?"

"I have no fucking idea," he replied. "They've been falling off that huge ass lizard thing that's been making a mess of the whole fucking city."

"Lizard thing?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's like Godzilla come to life," he replied. "Now come on we've got to get out of here."

He grabbed by the arm and began dragging me behind him.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"I really don't know," he admitted. "This thing has made a mess of the city and I don't know it well enough to find my way around."

"You're not from New York?" I asked.

He gave me a sidelong glance, "No, I'm just visiting."

Suddenly he stopped and glanced around.

"Get down!" He yelled as he dragged me along and we both fell to the ground together.

A huge foot slammed down right where we had been and a massive creature passed over us. I couldn't take it anymore a blood curdling scream came from out of my mouth. But just mere seconds later it stopped as the stranger clamped his hand over my mouth.

"Shhh," he hissed at me.

Suddenly there was the sound of gunfire. I turned towards the noise and saw dozens of soldiers running towards the creature weapons firing. But it was so big that their rifles were having no effect. Suddenly there was a loud boom as a tank appeared and opened fire. I began to feel hope but that was quickly squashed as the creature continued on it way wantonly destroying everything in its path.

"What are you still doing here?" Someone yelled.

I saw a soldier running over to us setting down his automatic rifle to check on us.

"We're fine," the stranger said. "We were on our way out but we got a little lost."

The soldier turned to say something but the stranger shoved him aside and I caught a flash of steel before all three of us were covered in green-grey gore as the stranger sliced another creature in half.

Suddenly the soldier started screaming. I turned to see that another one of those creature had latched onto his back and was biting him. The stranger swung his sword and that creature was dead, but the soldier was in rough shape.

"Leave him," the Stranger said grabbing the soldiers rifle and sheathing his sword.

"But he's still alive!" I protested. "We can just abandon him."

"Those wounds are serious," the stranger said. "And there's no way we can get him to a doctor in time."

"But…" I tried to protest as I examined the soldier's injuries.

The stranger grabbed me and pulled me away from him. He then knelt down and pulled out the soldier's sidearm.

"I'm sorry," the stranger said as he leveled the gun at the soldier's head.

The soldier stared up at him as if in anger but then he gave a grim nod. The stranger pulled the trigger releasing a single bullet into the soldier's head.

"Holy shit you killed him!" I yelled.

"He was a soldier and he knew that I was right," the stranger said. "We can't afford to care for every wounded person we come across if we're going to get out of here. I don't know about you by my main goal is to survive I don't want to die here like this, I refuse to be just another statistic. Now what about you?"

Despite everything I believed in, what he said made sense. Morally it wasn't right, but the logic behind it was understandable.

"So?" he asked still looking for an answer.

I reached out and grabbed the pistol from him, "I don't want to die." I said.

"Good," he said with a smile. "My name's Paul."

"Victoria," I replied.

He glanced at the soldiers and armored vehicles that were moving past us.

"Come on," he said grabbing me by the arm and helping me up. "If we go the opposite way that they're headed we're probably safe, we just have to watch out for those smaller things."

He'd already done so much to help, little did I know that he'd do several more heroic things before we finally got out of Manhattan.