"Help!" Caitlin screamed as she ran into the convenience store at the gas station, the little bell ringing with the opening of the doors.
"Oh my god," a middle-aged woman perusing the snack items in the nearest aisle gasped. "What the hell happened to you?"
Caitlin turned around to see Eddie charge through the door after her.
"Run!" she ordered the woman and the half dozen other people in the store. "Get out of here!" While the terrified bystanders made their escape out of the building, Caitlin grabbed a box of crackers off the nearest shelf and threw it at Eddie. This barely fazed him, but it distracted Eddie long enough for Caitlin to run around the corner into the next aisle.
Despite her pleas and the obvious danger, the heavyset bearded man at the cash register just stood there in shock, watching Eddie chase Caitlin through the store and leaving pieces of food and packaging scattered across the floor. "What are you waiting for?" she cried to him. "Get help!"
"Your help is right here, kid," he assured her with a nod, reaching below the counter to grab something.
Eddie stopped his pursuit of Caitlin to look at the man ready to help her.
True to his word, the man produced a handgun and aimed it at the monster.
Eddie growled at him.
The man cocked the gun.
"Run," he calmly said to Caitlin.
Once again, an awful lot happened during the course of what couldn't have been more than a few seconds.
Caitlin ducked and crawled towards the door she'd entered moments earlier.
A deafening gunshot reverberated through the store.
It missed, shattering the glass of a refrigerator door along the wall and bursting open a carton of milk.
Eddie pounced on the man, who screamed and fired two more shots before he and his gun were silenced by the reptilian beast overpowering him.
Caitlin had almost made it to the door. She glanced towards the counter, where the only thing visible behind it was Eddie's tail swinging through the air. Her hand reached for the door to open it, but then she saw the gun on the floor by the counter, apparently having flown out of the clerk's hand in the chaos of the attack.
She knew she should have just opened the door and ran.
But she didn't. She crawled towards the gun, carefully lifted it up off the floor tile, and wrapped her fingers around the bloodstained handle. In reaching for the gun, she saw the clerk's motionless arm extending towards it on the floor nearby, but didn't dare look beyond that.
Caitlin gripped the gun with both hands—it was heavier than she thought—rose to her feet, and aimed the weapon at Eddie. She took a deep breath…and pulled the trigger.
Eddie screeched and lost his balance as the bullet tore into his side.
Surprised at how loud it was, Caitlin's ears started ringing, and she nearly dropped the gun. But she couldn't lose her grip, not now.
Returning her gaze over to Eddie, she saw him shaking his head as he lifted it back up from below the counter, obviously just as disoriented by the day's chaos as Caitlin was. A prominent hole in the Creep's side, dripping blood onto the floor, was a welcome sight, but as long as Eddie still had breath in his lungs, this fight wasn't over. While he jumped onto the counter, standing tall and looking down on Caitlin, she did her best to steady her right arm and aim it at his head.
She fired again.
This time, Eddie had anticipated her move, and he quickly jerked to the side, causing the bullet to tear a hole in the roof of the convenience store. "Shit," Caitlin said, since there wasn't really much else she could say under the circumstances.
Eddie bared his teeth, red from the blood of his victims, at Caitlin in what must have passed for a reptilian smile, the glee of a predator that has finally cornered its prey.
Caitlin fired off one more shot just as Eddie leaped off the counter. He let out a deafening screech as the next bullet hit him square in the abdomen, and he fell sideways, knocking over a rotating sunglasses display while she backed out of harm's way.
Exiting through the glass doors and making the little bell ring again, Caitlin didn't want to take her eyes off of her attacker, since she knew he would rebound at any minute, but nevertheless she dared to do so. Still aiming the weapon in Eddie's direction, she glanced behind her, where a growing crowd of onlookers watched from the street and the next block over. Surely someone had called the cops by now, and help would be on the way soon. Her eyes turned from the crowd to her own arms, bloodied and bruised from the fighting, and serving as a constant reminder of her increasing helplessness as every action she took failed to stop Eddie. Another tear fell down her cheek, and she wiped it away with her free left hand, sniffling away the fluid coming from her nose.
"Look out!" someone shouted.
Caitlin looked up from her injuries just in time to see Eddie charge through the door, directly towards her.
Without thinking, she pulled the trigger again.
Click.
Nothing happened.
"Oh, f—" she started, before electing to run and hide on the other side of the nearest gas pumping station rather than finish her curse. Counting six bullets since the now-deceased man at the cashier had first fired the gun—only two of which had hit their target successfully—she tossed the useless weapon aside.
Eddie snapped at her outstretched arm as the gun fell onto the asphalt underneath him. He was noticeably slower now that he had two bloody holes in his side, but he was still remarkably quick.
Running out of options, Caitlin decided to simply lead Eddie on a mindless chase back and forth around the gas pumping stations. The onlookers, of course, did nothing except cower in fear as they watched from a safe distance, which did nothing to help her. Then again, there probably wasn't much they could do, but even a failed attempt—like the ones from the driver and the cashier—would have been nice.
Caitlin's body collided into a gas pump, knocking out the nozzle and hose and causing her to trip onto the hot ground below.
She felt Eddie climb onto her back, his claws ready to tear though her shirt and into her flesh.
A second ago, she'd hated the gas pump she'd set free, but now that time was running out, she sensed a final opportunity. Screaming as the claws on Eddie's feet dug slowly into her body, Caitlin grabbed the hose, pulled the nozzle over into her hands, and fired her newest weapon of choice at the murderous lizard.
As gasoline poured onto a surprised Eddie, she took advantage of his confusion to crawl out from under him and painfully rise back onto her feet. Now with greater control of her situation, she kept aim at Eddie, constantly spraying him with the gasoline. He roared in protest, flailing his arms and sending spare drops of the liquid back towards Caitlin, while stepping away a few yards to avoid being hit.
When she felt he was far enough away, Caitlin dropped the gas pump and hurried over to the crowd of bystanders in the street. "I need a lighter!" she shouted, waving both arms above her head to make sure they saw her—though they probably would have noticed it anyway. "A lighter!"
She looked behind her, while holding out an open hand for her requested item. Eddie was still in the gas station, shaking off the gasoline and spitting it out of his mouth, all while trying to avoid slipping on that which coated the ground underneath him. It was a relief that he wasn't focusing on her at the moment, but her advantage wouldn't last. She needed a goddamn lighter.
"Here!" said a portly man with glasses who looked to be in his forties as he placed the lighter into the palm of her hand. "Told my wife I was going to quit. I lied."
Caitlin nodded, not having time to waste by properly thanking the man, and clutched the gray lighter as she ran back towards Eddie. With one hand, she reached for the nearest gas pump and aimed it at Eddie, while with the other, she struggled to get a usable flame. After a few tense moments, in which Eddie made one final dash for her, Caitlin saw a single light appear from the metal device, and she bent down onto the ground to set flame to gasoline. "Just die!" she snapped at him, tossing away the gas pump in the other hand while she watched the fire travel up the puddle of gas straight towards Eddie.
For the first and last time, she saw Eddie display actual fear. His inhuman green eyes turned a pale white, before becoming engulfed along with the rest of his body in fiery orange. She smiled, feeling almost like a sociopath as she delighted in the death of another. His alien screams pierced the sky, accompanied by the crackling of the ever-expanding flames.
That's when Caitlin remembered that she, too, had splashes of gasoline on her, and she hurried out of the way as quickly as her injuries would allow. She'd just about pushed herself into the safety of the terrified crowd when an unseen explosion at the gas station rocked the ground beneath her, causing her to fall hard onto the asphalt, though other people did their best to catch her. This time, she didn't want to lift herself back up. She was too tired. And she didn't have to. The danger had passed, for now. Caitlin's eyes started to close, the need for sleep overtaking everything else.
An even larger explosion and a powerful gust of wind were the last things she felt before total blackness brought her a peaceful respite from this god-awful day.