Chapter 9
Elisa tightly gripped the cold handle of the pawnshop door, took a deep breath, and pulled. The door held tightly, rattling mockingly as she tried again. "Damn," she muttered under her breath as she turned to find a suitable tool to break the glass out, "it's always something isn't it?" She returned to the door with a small brick, dislodged from the wall of a nearby alley and forgotten ages ago, and used it to bash out the window. The sound of shattering glass was startlingly loud compared to the vacuum of silence that seemed to hover over the foggy world. Once the glass had been removed, Elisa cleared the doorframe of jagged pieces and crouched through. Inside she found a dusty room, seemingly abandoned, but well stocked with Army surplus gear and weapons as far as she could see. Rifles and handguns lined racks behind the sales counter, and Army paraphernalia, including jackets and fatigues were hanging from several racks. She immediately grabbed a jacket from the closest rack, making sure it fit correctly, and laid it on the sales counter.
Next she found a small first-aid kit and cleaned the wound on her arm, which before had been only crudely bandaged, before redressing it and setting to work procuring a weapon. She knew very little about rifles, but she'd been shooting with Mike enough times to know a little about handguns, so she found a handgun she was familiar with, which happened to be a Glock 30, a more compact version of a Glock 21. She found as many clips as she could find, nearly thirty, and loaded them all with the .45 caliber rounds that the gun used. And, to make sure she was ready, she packed a small Smith & Wesson .357, which she knew was a very powerful weapon, but would be much more cumbersome than the Glock, as a back up weapon. She packed all the ammunition into a small backpack she had taken from one of the racks, and took a fanny pack so she could pack ammo for easy reach. Armed to the teeth, she smiled and slipped through the broken door once more, back out into the misty nightmare that was once her world.
She first noticed the effect of the jacket, and how she was no longer damp and cold as she walked, which allowed her to finally keep her attention on her surroundings, which became more disturbing by the second. It was as if everyone had vanished in a single second. As she passed a small outdoor café, she noticed the plates of half eaten food, glasses half full, trays of food, some uneaten, some not, left as if the people holding them had vanished where they stood. And through it all, the deafening silence reined supreme. "Hello?" She yelled, but only the silence answered. Damn, She thought, it is way too quiet. She held the Glock aloft, and squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. Damn safety! She thought as she clicked it off. She tried again, and jumped involuntarily as the heavy round tore through the quiet like a dull knife. "Well," She said aloud, "if anyone, or anything is around, at least it knows I'm here know." And as she spoke, she heard it, and turned involuntarily the sound grew slightly clearer. It sounded like music, and from the sound of it, it wasn't far off. She weighed her options for a moment, and then decided where there was music, there might be people, so she started off in the direction of the sound.
She followed the sound for nearly and hour before she found the small wooden door, that led to a dusty storeroom in the back of a restaurant alleyway, and she was surprised to find it ajar, which would probably account for why the music was so suddenly audible, seeing as how someone had set up a small record player on one of the boxes that lined the wall. Well, She thought, someone had to open the door, so maybe they'll come back in a moment. A sudden breeze blew through the small, rattling a few of the lose items and pulling the door, which to this point had be flush with the inside wall, completely shut. Elisa retched at what was on the inside of it.
A man, or what was left of him, was attached securely to the door, with several crude attachments, most of them made of simple metal wire. His body was covered in hundreds, if not thousands, of deep wounds. Blood covered the door, and the wall where the door had been resting earlier. His mouth was gaping in a silent scream of agony, and his eyes were staring blankly at her. She could tell he was a cook from the white apron that was tied, or was rather hanging in tattered remains, around his waist. After a few long moments of nausea, she decided that leaving the small storeroom would be prudent, and she flung the door open quickly without looking at the lacerated corpse. Back out in the alley, she was suddenly aware of unseen eyes, watching her, regarding her, in rapt silence. She stood still for a moment, clutching the Glock tightly, allowing the comforting weight of the weapon to calm her, and then she quickly exited the alley and continued on her way to the antique shop.
***
They had all sensed the human leave the small chamber where they had left the corpse, no longer of interest since it could no longer scream in agony, and had followed her scent quite easily. They now followed her closely enough as not to lose track, but not so closely that she would be able to easily spot them. They had enjoyed the anguished look on the young man's face and they had ripped into him, and had enjoyed it even more as his choked screams had filled the air. He had died though, leaving them all angry, and longing for a new plaything, something they could rip, and cut, and tear, and make her scream. They would not be so quick this time, they would make her suffer, make her feel the pain they felt, make her cry, make her bleed, make her die, slowly, much more fun that the young man from the storeroom, they had been greedy then, unchecked in their new found rage, and unable to hold themselves in check long enough to make the killing pleasurable, but this time, this time, it would be divine.
***
She froze as she heard the wheezing giggle behind her, leveling the gun at the thick fog involuntarily, ready to fire on anything that might try to attack her from the fog, but found only the fog, nothing more. She stood still though, and listened for a long moment, straining to hear some sound, a footstep, another giggle, anything that would confirm or deny her suspicions.
Her heart sank as several bursts of insane giggling erupted from all around her. The first ragged shape stumbled from the fog directly in front of her, and she gagged at the sight of it. It was the size of a toddler, but the resemblance ended there, in fact and resemblance to any living creature ended there. The most glaring difference were their missing legs, the tiny monster had no legs to speak of, only atrophied little pieces of flesh that hung limply beneath it as it stumbled toward her, walking with its hands, using them as feet. As it got closer though, she could see that it didn't need the hands that it used as feet, because it had a separate set of arms that seemed to sprout from its chest and end in wicked looking hands, with long, spindly fingers. Each finger ended in a long, sharp claw, nearly three inches long. Its misshapen head wobbled back and forth as it moved in a staggered line toward her, giggling the entire way. When she saw its eyes, or what was left of them, she leveled the gun and looked down the barrel, between the empty sockets that poured gore from them like rivers.
BAM! The giggling stopped as the bullet ripped through its gore drenched torso, and was replaced with a high pitched, infantile scream.
She yelped in surprise as she felt a set of claws slash at her pant leg from behind. She spun, and found a new demon had snuck up behind her and attempted to claw her leg. She pointed the gun at its head and fired, sending an explosion of chunky gore all over the pavement at her feet, and the little beast died convulsing at her feet. She turned attention back to the first one, the one she had shot in the chest, and found it crawling toward her, wheezing as it labored to breath, dragging itself toward her with all the strength it could muster. She fired one shot, and ended it struggle.
She turned to run, and found that a horde of nearly twenty little demons had cut off her exit, each giggling in insane glee as they began to advance.
BAM! She began firing, making sure to place each shot between the eyes, as a way to conserve bullets, and a way to end the lives of these little monsters as humanely as possible. She continued shooting as the line of toddler sized creatures closed in around her, and then ran through the gap she had opened with the Glock. Once through, and turned back in time to see the demons turn on their fallen brethren, tearing at their dead flesh with knife like talons, turning their already blood covered bodies into lumps of bleeding flesh, which wasn't much more than they already were. Cannibals, She though, well then, maybe they'll forget about me long enough for me to get away. She was startled by a screeching sound, and glanced to her right just in time to see one of the little beasts hop up onto the roof of a car, before jumping off to continue its pursuit. All at once, they became more than shambling demons as the horde behind her, now finished picking over the remains of their fallen, turned and began running after her, the sounds of their fleshy hands slapping the concrete barely audible of the din of giggling that suddenly erupted from all directions.
She targeted the closest monster, the one that had jumped down from the parked car, and fired a single shot, and cursed loudly as the thing dodged it easily. SHIT! How'd they get so fast? She thought. She turned and yanked the trigger of the Glock, only to hear the deafening click as the firing pin fell on empty space. She fumbled for the fanny pack's small zipper, trying desperately to tear it open and reload the weapon, and having very little luck, then her hand fell on the handle of the .357, and she smiled in spite of her predicament. She pulled it from her belt and spun in one quick motion, pointing the heavy weapon at the closest pursuer, and fired, her arm jerking back from the recoil, her ears ringing from the loud report, and watched as the bullet careened into the demon, shattering it's body and throwing it back into the rest of them. They wavered uncertainly, there heads up in the air, watching her alertly, but at the same time they seemed to be sniffing, as if they were trying to smell something in the air, but she smelled nothing, heard nothing, and waited, gun trained on the threat before her. Then, all at once, the demons fled, screeching loudly with their infantile screams, until they faded away into the fog, and were gone. "Huh?" She grunted in her confusion, "they get scared pretty easy." She laughed, and turned to continue on her way, though this time, she was much more alert to her surroundings, and she made sure all the guns were full, in case the little demons gained some ounce of courage and returned for her.
***
They watched her leave, and could barely contain their rage at the prospect of losing a new toy, a new creature to torture. They were smarter than that though, and they knew when larger predators were around, they had smelled it almost immediately, its stench was easily recognizable, and its aura, which they were particularly adept at sensing, stood out against their surroundings like a black dot against a white piece of paper. She belonged to it now, the big creature, the one that with the wings, she was its toy now, its plaything, they had no more claim to it, for it was a much more powerful predator than they, and it would have its way with her, whether they like it or not. They chose not to confront it, for they knew it brought pain, and even they feared the pain it brought. It was coming, and the girl, she was to be its next meal. They could only hope they didn't encounter the pain bringer, the one with the thorny mane. It was a predator indeed, they had watched in the early hours of their lives as it had painted the streets red with the blood of hundreds, leaving them to clean up the bloody scraps as it stalked off for more prey, the aura of hatred around it choked them, filling them with the desire to flee, which is what they did, they had not seen it since, and hoped not to ever again.
***
She moved quickly, making sure of her surroundings, not wanting to have another run in with the infantile monsters that had so suddenly fled before. Her attention was completely focused ahead of her though, and she didn't notice the sleek shape that seemed to flow from the roof of the building behind her, landing without any noise above a whisper. She didn't notice as it silently stalked her, making sure that she didn't discover it by ducking into alleys when she turned to glance behind her, waiting until it was sure she wasn't looking before slipping quietly out to continue its single minded hunt, following her scent as if it were runway lights, slowly closing in, until she was just beyond its reach, then, like a coil that had been wound too tightly, it sprung on her. She turned too late, and was in its grasp before she could so much as squeak in terror. It squeezed tightly, crushing the breath from her, at first she thought of the thing from her house, sure that it had survived the explosion at the apartments, and that it had followed her, and would now squeeze the life from her. When she looked at it though, she found a new monster, less frightening, but much more disturbing. It was a creature, well, more of a cross between several creatures, that should not—could not—exist. She saw a lizard-like body, complete with a long thin tail, a human head, though twisted and deformed in the same manner as the rest of the monsters she had encountered, and wings, huge wings, covered in long black feathers, which covered most of the body as well, though they were ragged and were missing in large patches, mostly areas of flesh that oozed with festering sores, white puss mixed with blood that flowed into the shiny black feathers. Its arms were long, and ended in disproportionate hands with fingers that were almost half as long as she was tall. It drew her close, and opened its jaws slowly, then, with a sickening CRACK the jaw dislocated, falling back to swallow her whole. She tightly shut her eyes as the first wave of hot, stinking breath hit her, not wanting to see her fate as it unfolded before her, eaten alive by some demon that shouldn't even exist.
WHAM!
She felt as much as hear the impact as something heavy landed on a car directly behind the winged beast, which suddenly dropped her to assess the new threat which had so loudly made itself known. She open her eyes and saw it, standing amidst the remains of what had been a small sports utility vehicle, and was now little more than scrap, she saw it, and knew it before her mind even registered it presence. It had followed her. It had come. It was here.
It was The Crucifix Demon.
Her vision hazed and began to fade as her oxygen starved brain choked for air, and as the world around her faded into blackness, she thought she heard The Crucifix Demon bellow, a definite howl that could mean one thing, it had challenged the winged beast, and she was to be the prize.