Cindy let out a breathless sigh, noncommittal. George turned to her, question in his eyes.
"What's wrong," he asked, her hand still clasped in his own. She let her hand drop and looked away from him.
"Nothing…everything," she said. "I don't know…you'll think I'm crazy." He could only stare at her, a nervous doubt rumbling in his heart.
"Cindy..." he began, but she was speaking again.
"These past few days…such terrible things around us, but…" she started, turning to him. "They've been the best I can remember. But here, now…I really do. And the days…the days don't seem long enough when I realize this. All we do is run here and there, trying to stay alive…but I just wish I could've met you out in the real world somehow. Maybe with time…" her words trailed off. "I…I don't know" she repeated hollowly, under his intense stare.
"The shortest days are the ones we want back most," said George, his eyes suddenly dreamy. "They're the easiest to lose by our end," he added, giving her a distant smile. "Something my wife once said." At his words, Cindy became even more detached. "That is, my ex-wife," he quickly added. She turned to him.
"You still love her," she said simply.
"Part of me…did, but with all that's happened…" he trailed off, turning away.
"What is it," she asked, almost afraid of his answer.
"I thought the love we had was more important than anything else. But looking back at those feelings now…they really weren't. All that really matters, what really counts, is survival…our survival." He paused. "It took this whole disaster for me to see that. If I were to even try to go back to her after all this I…I wouldn't be the man I was; the man she loved and the man who loved her. Do you understand"
"I think so. Out there in the regular, real world, I had my whole routine worked out perfectly. But still…still I felt like I had no reason why. Even though I had my life planned out there, I was really wandering about aimlessly. Waiting for something, almost."
As she spoke, her hand tightly gripped her shoulder, as if the words were tearing at her soul. Even to simply say them, the memory of her prior life seemed so distant, so meaningless.
"All I ever wanted was a family," she continued. "A loving husband, a smiling child…was that too much to ask for? That little bit of happiness?"
"No, it wasn't," he replied. "I'm sure that, in time, you would've had a life like that…maybe even better." He paused. "But Cindy…after all this, I want to remember one thing: you deserve those things," he said, gazing into her azure eyes. "Or perhaps someone," he added, his own eyes growing distant. "There was a time I thought of only my work, of living a routine life with structure, purpose. Maybe I wanted too much. Maybe all I needed was…right in front of me, in my arms," he said, turning to her.
With the last traces of daylight leaking through the cracked window, George reached out to Cindy in the dim darkness. His strong arms wrapped around Cindy's slim waist, they stared into one another's tired eyes and felt the small space between them drift away with the fading dusk. He gazed longingly at her full lips, now slightly parted, coming to meet his own.
Before they could, though, they heard a loud crash behind them. George quickly pushed Cindy behind him, and was relieved to see it was only the rusty air vent that had collapsed onto the hard tile. He was turning to Cindy to tell her it was ok when he heard something else fall from the vent. Cindy's eyes widened in terror, and he knew they were alone no longer. Without hesitation, he shoved her into the corner bathroom stall, and spun to face the monster, alone. And unarmed. He cursed himself for leaving the assault rifle downstairs. He hoped he'd live long enough to regret it.
-
The hunter bellowed a bloodcurdling howl, stretching its arms and claws out their full length. The wingspan of the short and stout creature measured at least seven feet, with a set of steak knife length claws on each monstrous limb. It seemed the monster was a bit stiff from its time in the vent, rotating each joint slowly and methodically. George saw his opening and stepped forward, ducking under its first, slow swipe and throwing his shoulder squarely into the hunter's upper torso. With the momentum of its missed attack and George's tackle, the creature spun backwards, stumbling into the adjacent stall. Its arms flailing wildly, the claws dug harshly into the walls of the stall, tearing into the metal. It roared again, angry and ready to spill blood, struggling to regain its balance.
A loud explosion rang from outside in the hallway, and then a loud gunshot. George looked away for a moment, his eyes desperately searching for a weapon, and when he turned back, he saw Cindy, standing precariously on the toilet of the neighboring stall and leaning over the partition with the fallen hunter. She had her handgun drawn, and she began to fire it one handed into the roof of the creature's skull. Her third shot splattered the brain of the beast through its jaw and onto the clean granite tile. It fell forward on dead legs as she continued to fire her last rounds. The creature's corpse hung by razor claws still dug into the walls, a blank and lifeless expression on its terrible reptilian face as its life matter dribbled down its short throat and obscenely muscled chest.
He looked over at her, now descending carefully from her awkward porcelain stepping stool. He expected her to be terrified, scared out of her wits, maybe even crying, but instead he saw what must have been a mirror for his and all their faces: cold understanding. An awareness that became more and more apparent as they fought each battle for their very lives. This was no game. The survival instinct had kicked in, and for those strong or lucky enough to remain, it had taken over their minds, their bodies.
-
Jim could actually feel his body quaking in his shoes; a cold shiver scuttling along the base of his spine and making his knees buckle weakly. He knew true terror at that moment, seeing those scaly gray bastards prowling the area before him. He figured Yoko would've had a fresh yellow puddle at her shoes, but instead she was quietly reaching into her backpack to remove the combat shotgun. She was sliding the second shell into the chamber when they heard a loud crash in the bathroom next to them. In the otherwise dead silence of the hall, Jim had closed his eyes against the sudden racket, but the hunters hadn't. They began to creep over when their merciless eyes picked up on the two survivors, and they began to accelerate with an almost feline fluidity. The pair of hunters, in full gallop with only a handful of yards between them, began to close the gap. Yoko was bringing up the shotgun before she realized she had yet to cock it. Her eyes widened in fear as she struggled to snap back the steel grip, and she quickly realized she wouldn't be able to do it in time.
From the corner of her eye, a flying gray glass bottle suddenly appeared, slowly arcing over her shoulder and towards the monsters. It looked like a perfect throw, but when the bottle struck the shoulder of the first hunter, it harmlessly bounced off the soft spot in its flesh. Her heart sank at the sight. Jim's luck once again seemed to pull through, though, as the bottle shattered on the marble floor and exploded in a ball of blinding fire. The force of the bomb threw the first hunter up into the air and back, its dead and tattered body spinning and slamming into the hard floor with a satisfying thud. The remaining hunter, stunned by the flash, stood there helplessly as Yoko took the opportunity to calmly pump and set the shotgun. As the beast opened its wide jaws to screech, she unloaded the buckshot cleanly into its gaping mouth. Its lifeless body fell backwards, the upper part of its head now a scattered mess of exposed brain and chipped skull.
Sudden gunfire erupted from the men's room now, and the young pair kicked in the heavy wooden door, their guns at the ready. Cindy and George stood there in the hollow glow of the bathroom, holding each other.
"It's okay," George assured Cindy. She was suddenly distraught from the madness of it all, and George held her now, his hand softly caressing her back. She turned and saw the two standing there, their weapons in hand, and her mind seemed to return.
"We'd better check on Mark," she said, giving one last look to the creature. Its claws still holding into the booths' walls, the monster looked as if it had been crucified. He wasn't a religious man, but George thought it almost fitting that a godless beast that defied creation should die that way.
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