REWRITTEN 7/28/16
Slumber Party
"Go," I ordered Onyx, voice tight. "Go now."
"Where?" she demanded. She shifted around on top of the flour bags, head turning, searching. "The fire is blocking the exit, and we're surrounded."
I cursed when I realized she was right. The fuzzy orange light stretched from dark wall to dark wall in front of us, the huge clouds of smoke brushing the ceiling and boiling towards our stone column slowly. "Shit. Okay." My mind raced, and I dug my fingers into the bags. The white powder burst around my fingers like flowers. "I'll go put it out and lure the munchers away. You get out as soon as there's a clear path."
Onyx wasn't fire resistant, and I mostly was, which was why I wanted her to stay there. And my Hero Complex was rearing its white horse head.
"And let yourself get killed?" Onyx demanded, snatching up my arm as I started to stand.
"Oh, ye of little faith," I admonished lightly and pulled myself free. I gave her one of my charming, unworried grins. "Don't worry. I don't have a death wish." Mostly.
Onyx opened her mouth to object, but I saw it coming and quickly cut her off. We didn't have much time; I could taste the first fingers of smoke in the air, and soon it would be clawing its way down our throat, choking us with each breath.
"Complain later!"
I jumped into the air, flipped once, and landed neatly on a newly made fireboard, halting my descent just a few inches above the reaching hands below, quarterstaff held tightly against my back. With a rumbling moan that shook the metal shelves, part of the undead mob wobbled around to follow me, pushing and shoving at each other in a giant writing mass, a monstrous, overgrown anthill. I tipped the fireboard down until its underside brushed along the tallest reaching fingers, hoping to entice more of the munchers to follow.
The temperature of the air spiked rapidly until the inside of my throat felt like the inside of a cooked chicken, and my skin seemed like it was baked so crispy that it would soon begin to flake off in huge, black flecks to float down on the munchers, allowing them to enjoy me like a bag of potato chips.
…That was a disturbing image. I shook my head to dispel the picture. Moving on.
Finally, I could get no closer to the roaring flames; the heat was simply too much to bear. The blaze was a roaring, pounding presence in my head, and it danced to the beat of a tune only it and I could hear. Books always described fire as being alive, and I knew of no truer saying. Fire was alive, both in the chemical and spiritual sense. Fire breathed oxygen just like almost every other living creature. It had its own mind. And so, fire was made out to be chaotic and dangerous, both friend and foe. Because it was wild. Because it was alive.
But if you knew how to speak fire's language, you could make it do just about anything.
And I knew exactly how to speak fire's language. I'd been taught by the best – Teemo. I had the same rage and the same passion burning inside me, and so I could hear fire's song. It was the same as my soul song.
Breathing deeply, I caught hold of the energy that twisted within the roaring blaze. I bent it to my will and lifted it into the air with a sweep of my arms, crafting it into a curling ball that dripped red tongues onto the hungry munchers beneath me, appetite fighting appetite.
Good for containing the fire? Not really. The burning munchers spread their flames to the dry boxes on the shelves, but it was pretty damn funny to watch them stumble around and set other munchers on fire.
To my left, I saw the glint of a large window, the dying sun glinting off the glass like bleeding stars. I jabbed a stiff wrist at it, flattened palm pointing at the ceiling, and the massive fireball flew towards it, exploding through the glass with a musical shattering sound. Hopefully, it would either dissipate outside or keep on flying right up into outer space where it would be starved of oxygen and simply blip out. The shock wave it left in its wave knocked over the shelves, setting off an epic dominoes effect, and sent munchers careening through the air and across the ground like tumbleweeds. I grinned in amusement.
I zipped towards the doors on my flashing fireboard, ducking through their empty frames and completely incinerating the arm of a lost, wandering muncher. Onyx was already waiting for me in the driver's seat of the police car, having used my distraction to dart through the store. I deposited myself lightly on the ground, fireboard disappearing with a swirl, and slid into the vehicle, shunning the seatbelt.
"Well, that was a failure," Onyx as she slammed down on the accelerator and spun the car in a tight circle so we could zoom out of the parking garage. I shrieked and shriveled up and died like a vampire when we hit the sunlight.
"Oh come on. It was not," I replied once I'd been reincarnated and could function again.
Onyx let her head drop to the side to give me a sarcastic look. "What did we accomplish in there?"
"We almost burned down Costco and killed some munchers."
"And what were we supposed to do?"
"Kill all the munchers and get supplies."
Oh. My face dropped. Maybe it had been a failure.
"Oh well." I waved the whole fiasco away and tossed it into the past like a wadded-up napkin. "This is mall country. There are plenty of other stores to hit."
"Not tonight, there aren't," Onyx shot me down as the needle crept up to fifty on the narrow road. "It's too late."
"So?" I asked, not understanding her concern. Out the window, the sun was barely beginning to kiss the earth, her lover, shooting orange rays across the sky. There was a second sun in the sky, tracking through the clouds at an odd angle, growing smaller bit by bit. I smiled proudly at my accomplishment. That was probably giving some people heart attacks.
"Do you really want to go hunting munchers in the dark?" Onyx hit a turn at breakneck speed, and my shoulder nearly punched a hole right through the door.
"Yes," I replied eagerly. It sounded like a challenge.
"Only you," she muttered. "Well, I don't, so we're not going to. Case closed."
I slumped down in my seat and flung one hand dramatically across my face. "Oh, you've crushed all my hopes and dreams!"
"You'll live," she answered unfeelingly.
"No, I won't!" I protested. "Are you sure? Look, I'm having a heart attack right now!" I let out a short scream and puddled out of my seat and onto the dirt floor of the car.
Onyx ignored me. I stayed down there for the rest of the drive on a matter of principle, refusing to move even when the car came to a stop five minutes later. "Get up, Enia," Onyx ordered.
My tongue lolled out of my mouth like a dead person's, and I let my eyes slip shut. I was being such a little shit and having the time of my life.
Onyx slammed the door as she got out of the car and stomped around the hood. She yanked my side open and grabbed me by the arms, dragging me unceremoniously out of the car. Then she dropped me on the concrete, and there wasn't even a nice layer of snow to protect me. "Ow!" I yelped, unable to remain dead when my skull cracked against the sidewalk. "Hey!"
"See, you're not dead."
"I might die from brain trauma now!"
"Stop being a baby." She couldn't keep the tiny, hidden grin off her face.
I stuck my hand into the air for help up, which, of course, she ignored. I sighed, grumbling to myself about how polite she was, and somersaulted backwards to pop to my feet, spinning around and running to catch up. "Where are we?"
Onyx pointed towards a dark building up ahead of us. Its dark letters were too broken for me to read. "It's a Slumberland," she explained when I looked at her and shook my head.
"I didn't know there was one around here," I said.
She shrugged. "It's new."
The sun was almost gone as we jogged across the wreckage-littered parking lot. Onyx had stopped at the back of the lot, unable to get any closer because of tangle of empty cars. A small, grey arm waved from a shattered minivan window. Inside sat a little muncher in a stained, blue, Cinderella dress.
The doors of the Slumberland were shut and locked shut by a heavy, metal gate inside the glass and a thick padlock on the outside. The plates on the gate overlapped each other, hiding the interior of the building. I scanned the front, surprised that there were no broken windows.
The place seemed secure, and I knew that one of two things awaited us inside the dark Slumberland. Either it was empty, or it was packed wall to wall with hungry, undead monsters.
"We should go in through the second floor," I suggested. "That way no wandering munchers will be able to stumble in through the broken window."
Onyx nodded. "Sounds good."
We hurried over to the side of the building. I tried to peer through one of the yawning windows, but it was covered by the same kind of gate as the door. With a stomp of my foot, I lifted us into the air on a tower of cement of dirt. The second story windows were about half the size of the ones on the ground floor, and Onyx smashed her elbow into the glass. It shattered easily, the noise like a gunshot. We hid on the edges of our platform, waiting for something to fling itself at us.
Thirty seconds passed, and nothing had eaten us, so I gave Onyx a nod, and we slipped into the dark room. I clicked my fingers and held up a fireball to illuminate a storage room filled with filing cabinets. "Clear," I said briskly. "Move out."
"What are we, military?"
"Yes."
Onyx watched as I crouch-walked across the room towards the door, finger gun held at the ready, probably looking impossibly stupid. "Okay."
She ran after me, and we flung ourselves at the wall on either side of the door, eyes narrowed. When I yanked the thin, wooden door open, she burst out into the hallway to check both sides of it. "Clear!" she whispered sharply.
I slipped out of the room, my back pressed against the wall. It was a struggle to keep the laughter from bubbling over the surface. "Stairs?" I asked seriously, finger gun pointed at the ceiling.
"That way." Onyx pointed at the once-neon sign that sat high on the wall over a dark shadow.
We jogged double time down the corridor in perfect synchronization, making no noise expect for the soft, off-key hum of heroic music.
"Shut up," Onyx hissed, biting down on her grin.
"We should have brought a boom box."
"What is this, the 80s?"
"Don't you think it would be cool to have music playing?"
"Yeah, but not on a boom box."
"Then what would you use?" I snapped defensively.
"Oh, I don't know, maybe something from the twenty-first century like an IPod or a phone."
I wracked my brain for a good comeback to save my dignity but came up blank. I seemed to come up blank a lot. I settled for sticking my nose in the air haughtily.
The door to the stairs was already open, the floor inside littered with a couple of discarded papers. A muddy footprint was smeared across on of them, and I frowned. That was not a point in favor of Slumberland being abandoned.
Most of the stairwell was pitch black, and my brain filled in the blank space with munchers packed in from wall to wall and floor to ceiling like a massive block of flesh and teeth and waving limbs.
I quickly shut the door on that image.
"Let's go," I whispered.
Onyx nodded briskly. We descended side by side, silent for real this time. The small fireball in my hand lit up the space around us, but beyond its hazy sphere, the darkness was like stone, and I could feel insides tighten, and my throat tried to crawl out of my mouth. I reached out to touch the wall and whispered on of the cantrips I knew, one for light. Fire was good as a torch most of the time, but occasionally I wanted illumination that didn't make each shadow crawled like it had something hidden inside it.
The wall turned a sickly, glowing, neon-green, the color associated with radioactive materials. The tension in my body released all at once when I could see what was in front of me, and I heard Onyx let out a relieved breath, too.
The empty stairwell ended at a shut door. I slipped forward and placed my ear against the wood, barely breathing. There was silence in the room beyond. I motioned to Onyx with my hand and quietly eased the door open. She darted through, and I quickly followed, closing the door on the ghastly, green glow. It seeped under the crack, breathing across the floor.
"Light the whole place up," Onyx whispered. "I don't like being in the dark like this."
"Okay." I knelt and laid my palm against the cold tile, murmuring the spell a second time. Light burst from the floor, reaching for the ceiling. The furniture scattered across the room were black, hulking shapes. The beds were to our left, blankets unruffled, and sharp-edged tables marched away to our right. Before us were dozens of different living rooms, the sofas and tables displayed proudly. Five munchers staggered towards us, the grin light giving them a double gruesome, specter-like appearance.
"Oh no!" I cried in mock terror. "They're radioactive! Don't touch them!"
"They aren't radioactive, Enia," Onyx said, smacking me on the head. "Don't be stupid."
I shoved her hand away, annoyed. "I know that. I'm making shit up for fun."
Onyx shook her head and rolled her eyes. "You're so weird."
"Thanks."
"So don't touch them," Onyx agreed as the munchers wove drunkenly through the furniture for us. "What else?"
"Don't touch the floor," I said.
"Shit!" she yelled, and we ran for the nearest bed like we were in a game of hot lava.
We leapt up onto a large, queen-sized bed, our shoes marring the perfect, white covers with grey slush as we sank into the soft mattress. I bounced up and down happily.
The nearest muncher, only a few feet away, lunged at us, but the edge of the bed caught its hip, and it flopped over, flailing wildly. Onyx and I jumped up as high as we could and slammed into the bed hard, and the muncher was jounced up and down, snarling and waving its arms. I grabbed a smooth, blue vase from the bedside table and smashed it over the corpse's head. The pottery shattered into huge shards violently, a few of them driving through the rotten skull. The muncher fell still, and I kicked it off the bed.
Onyx slapped me five, and we singled out our next victim. I bounced higher off the bed and jumped onto a low dresser, the prop pictures wobbling dangerously. I leapt off, landing on a second bed and springing away again for a glass table as soon as my foot hit the mattress. It was just like a giant game of Lava Monster, or the game kids play in hotels when they try and only step on a certain color or pattern on the rugs.
A muncher hungered for me while I was balanced precariously on a tall bookshelf. I kicked it over as I jumped off, and the muncher was crushed beneath it, its skull shattering and spraying out black blood when it hit the edge of a table.
I landed on top of the tumbled case, ran across the table, leapfrogging the body, and flung myself onto another bed. "This is awesome!" I yelled to Onyx, trying to see how high into the air I could get with each jump.
She was across the room, leading a muncher on a merry chase through a living room display, and she flashed me two thumbs up.
A female muncher lurched towards me through a clump of dining tables and chairs. I leapt onto the nearest chest of drawers and waited for it. The muncher lunged, eyeball dangling down her cheek and swinging wildly, but I jumped over to a table just as it arrived. The muncher smacked right into the dresser, and when it untangled itself and came after me again, it had deep, uneven grooves dug into its flesh from all the knobs, dark fluids leaking from the wounds.
"Grotty," I told it. "You really need to work on your personal hygiene. That's not healthy."
My words were lost on its dead brain.
I grabbed a nearby chair. It was heavier than expected, its frame made of thin, stone rods. I stuck my tongue out and grunted as I hefted it into the air, swinging it like a baseball bat. The hard legs cleaved straight through the muncher's head, and the momentum spun me in a circle. The top half flew away and disappeared as the body collapsed.
I waved the chair over my head in victory.
"Clear!" Onyx yelled breathlessly. I dropped the seat, and it hit the floor with a reverberating bang. "Are the floors safe to stand on?"
"Nope!" I answered. "Stay off them!"
We jumped from furniture piece to furniture piece until we each found a bed we liked, mattresses soft, sheets clean, and pillows fluffy. I collapsed, suddenly completely and utterly exhausted, and let my eyes slip shut, lulled by the softness of the mattress and the warmness of the blankets – two things that I hadn't felt in a long, long time.
In hindsight, we probably should have checked the rest of the place first.