Monsters - Michael
I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, not running in any particular direction just running to escape whatever the hell those things were. The tiny rational part of my brain was wondering just what on earth a winged girl and something out of a werewolf legend were doing in a post apocalyptic wasteland, but it was mostly drowned out by my survival reflexes screaming in terror.
There was a howl of rage behind me and I ran faster, finding speed that I didn't know I had by putting my head down and running blindly. I really wished I'd spent more time in the gym. I barrelled into something solid, and whatever it was caught hold of my arms. I lashed out wildly.
"Whoa lad, it's me," Uncle Richard said, dodging my clumsy blow and lifting up his mask so I could see his face.
"Uncle?" I asked, surprised, and then gasped. "There's some kind of monster back there."
"Aye lad, I've met them too." He gestured at the thick bandage on his arm which was already stained with blood. That was decidedly bad, and even worse if he'd been bitten. Who knew what those wolf monsters had in their mouths.
"Now take this," he continued, handing me a pistol. "I'll get you out of here."
"I don't know to use this," I protested, gesturing with the gun and Uncle Richard hastily pushed the barrel away from his face.
"Point it at anything with more teeth than can fit in its mouth and pull," he told me gruffly. "Now watch my back."
We set off at a jog, keeping a wary eye out for the wolf monsters. I felt a little safer with Uncle Richard and my panic was subsiding, though I did manage to accidentally shoot a flower pot and Uncle Richard made me put the safety on after that.
We didn't see any more wolf monsters so I spent plenty of time wondering about them. Mutant wolves didn't make sense; radiation doesn't create monsters, it kills things, painfully, and I didn't even want to think where the winged people came from. The complexity of making a humanoid fly was mind-boggling.
Through sheer luck, or maybe good judgment we found Mitch and JJ sheltering behind a wrecked car on the way out of town. It looked like they'd found trouble too, especially as they had their guns out, and there was a wolf-like looking corpse draped over the bonnet of the car.
"Thank God, it's you Sir," Mitch said the moment he saw Uncle Richard. "We were ambushed investigating the supermarket and… well they got Tyler." I froze when I head that; Tyler had always been one of the happy ones, never depressed by our situation, he couldn't be dead. That just wouldn't be fair.
"Any idea who they are?" Uncle Richard asked gruffly, not missing a beat and crouching down next to them.
"Not a clue, Rich," JJ said shrugging. "Some kind of mutants maybe?"
"Mutation doesn't work like that," I said softly, sitting down with my back against the car and steadfastly ignoring the dead 'thing' next to me.
"The kid's right," Uncle Richard said. "But whatever they are we can assume they're hostile."
"No shit," Mitch muttered and Uncle Richard glared at him.
"We'll wait here for Stacey and Willis," he announced. "Keep an eye out for any more of those things, and if no one turns up in fifteen minutes we'll make a run for the bunker.
The next ten minutes passed in tense silence. My mind had kind of gone blank with shock and the small rational part was screaming that this could not be happening. The actual part of me that dealt with survival instincts was telling me to run like hell, which helped a whole lot, and even my common sense was telling me that I had no business holding a gun and I was more likely to shoot someone accidentally than hit a monster.
I need to get all these split personalities sorted out, having that much confliction can not be normal.
I almost jumped out of my skin as Stacey sprinted round a corner, bringing her gun up and I ducked instinctively, waiting for a bang. Which didn't come.
"Sir!" she exclaimed, running towards us. "Thank heavens I found you. They got Willis. And there were these… Angels."
Uncle Richard's eyes widened behind his mask at the mention of angels and I ducked my eyes. For some reason I didn't want to mention the girl I'd seen, part of me was in denial over whether or not she existed. Heck, a good chunk was insisting this entire thing couldn't possibly be happening.
"Right," Uncle Richard said after a moment. "We make a run for the bunker. Stay sharp and shoot anything that even looks like it might be a threat."
And with that stirring speech we set off at a jog. It actually turned out to be rather uneventful, there was only one case of someone shooting at shadows and even then it turned out to be just that. Shadows. The monsters seemed to have left us alone and I for one was glad for that. Still it was a relief when the familiar doors of the bunker appeared through the trees.
"Almost there," Uncle Richard called over his shoulder as he burst through the tree line and a single shot rang out.
Uncle Richard collapsed as his leg was torn out from under him and Mitch and JJ sped out of the forest, guns barking. I heard a bellow of pain from across the car park. Stacy was rushing to Uncle Richard's side and I found myself running out of the woods, bringing my gun up and searching for a monster to shoot at. I can't say I wasn't spoiled for choice, there were at least twenty, hiding in and among the small forest that had grown up around the site.
"Get to the bunker," I head Uncle Richard gasp as bullets pinged around me and my self preservation instinct finally got its own way. I started sprinting, firing randomly at the wolf monsters and rapidly drawing level with Mitch and JJ who were also accelerating towards safety.
My gun clicked empty at about midway across the parking lot and I didn't have a spare clip, though that would be fairly redundant as I don't know how to re-load a gun anyway. I head Mitch yell as a bullet traced a line across his arm and the storm of gunfire intensified until they too, ran out of bullets.
We kept running though.
Stacy screamed as we sprinted into the scant cover of the door recess, and I whirled to see her drop like a rock. No time to stop though. No time to do anything at all. The door began to inch open, painfully slowly and I spotted more wolf monsters appearing out of the woods, aiming nasty looking guns which looked like they'd been decorated with bones, and two dragging Uncle Richard back into the trees. I couldn't do anything about it though, and Mitch and JJ were desperately dragging Stacy towards the doors, ricochets bursting around them.
"It'll be okay Stace'!" I heard Mitch half yell over the roar of gunfire as they pulled her towards the door that was barely a quarter open.
"Come on kid, move it!" JJ roared, grabbing my shoulder and dragging me under the door.
Bullets were pinging off the metal as JJ slammed the door into reverse and it inched just as slowly down. A few bullets made it through the gap and when pinging around the small space sending us sprawling for cover, but none of the monsters attempted to follow and after a tense silence the door thundered shut.
I collapsed stunned against the sidewall as the next door began to crawl open. I should've been doing something. Mitch was performing desperate CPR on Stacy and I at least knew first aid, I could've been helping, but I only sat there stunned, my entire mind insisting:
"This shouldn't be happening."
