by Nathan Hale
tried for years before God had finally seen fit to bless us. I looked at the guys and they all nodded their heads in agreement so I said “Welcome aboard, check your shotgun and make sure it’s fully loaded. When we move out, don’t fire until you’re told to, the last thing we want to do is draw those critters to us.” JJ translated everything I had just said into Spanish, the last thing we needed was someone to screw up.
The lights kept flickering, while they didn’t go completely off, it was enough to make me think they would. I walked to the stairway door, cracked it slightly after looking through the tiny reinforced glass window, and strained to hear anything moving inside the stairwell. After a few minutes of hearing nothing I motioned and we quickly went through the door.
Like we had trained to do, we went up the stairway as quietly as it was humanly possible to do so. Outside of the tiny amount of noise we had made, the stairway remained quiet. At the ground floor I looked through the tiny window and saw the remnants of a slaughterhouse!
Blood and bones were strewn everywhere! I could see only a portion of the lobby but it didn’t matter, blood was splattered on the walls and ceiling, while the floor looked like it had been bathed in the stuff! It was obvious that the monsters had been here, but were they gone?
I waited quietly, with the door only slightly cracked, so I could hear better. JJ whispered “Do you see what’s missing, no flies?”
We had all been at murder sites and this time of year was when the flies showed up well before we did. That was weird, but having dinosaurs roaming around beat that all to hell for weirdness!
After a few minutes I whispered “Okay, we have no choice, so let’s do this” as I quietly moved the door open and moved far enough forward so everyone could form around me. With a whispered “Go” from Odeler, we began moving forward into the entrance foyer, close to the reception area.
As we moved together as a unit each of us was watching his quadrant, basically protecting the backs of his teammates. Jose was in the center of our square ostensibly as backup in case anyone went down, in reality he was supercargo.
It was obvious how the monsters had gotten in, all of the atriums large plate glass windows were now little pieces of shattered glass strewn everywhere. Even the shattered glass hadn’t either slowed the monsters down or hurt them! It was all tempered glass and had broken as advertised, into millions of non-sharp clumps and shards.
Across the room one of the two elevators was jammed open by a bag cart. Inside the elevator were a jumble of bones and blood was splattered everywhere! They must have tried using the cart to slow down the attacking monster, or monsters. That obviously hadn’t worked very well.
My eyes were drawn to the floor lights above the other elevator. They had just changed from fourteen to fifteen, the top floor. As stupid as even I thought it to be, I said “There might be people up there, we need to find out.”
JJ whispered “If we go up the steps we will miss the boat. Our only shot is the elevator.”
Then the lights started to descend. I said “It’s coming down. The larger animals seem to know how to use elevators, although they seem to have trouble with doors. Swing around slightly, JJ if it’s a large one, take it!” We didn’t have enough time to get back to the “safety” of our stairway.
I said a quick prayer because if we were forced to shoot the noise would undoubtedly bring more of the monsters, kind of like a dinner bell calling the cowboys to chow. Finally, the elevator “pinged” on one and the doors slid open to reveal a very scared little girl not more than six or seven years old cradling a small dog in her arms. Behind her in the elevator were the remnants of former passengers while the elevator itself was painted in its new paint scheme; human blood!
Her eyes went wide when she saw the four of us standing in the lobby with SWAT written all over our gear. Amazingly she didn’t scream, instead she looked warily around, then bent over, and grabbed a bloody white femur bone. She laid the bone down, so the elevator door could no longer close, and then ran towards us. Her little dog began softly growling just a few steps from us and her head jerked to the right, while her eyes grew wider and a scream was beginning to form on her lips.
From outside the building one of the little monsters jumped through the shattered window only to lose its footing on the shattered glass lying on top of the granite floor. Calmly Peters said “This one’s mine” as he quickly stepped forward and kicked the back of the creatures head with his heavy boot, hurling it across the glass covered floor, to lie still with its head at a right angle to its neck.
JJ asked the girl, as he made her get next to Jose in the pocket we created “Is anyone else up there?”
Strangely calm she answered “No, only those things!”
Frankly, I think she is in shock, but as long as she was still functioning, we needed to move. Just in front of the hotel, at the curb, was a taxi, one of those twelve passenger airport specials, with the side door open and the engine running. At this point, the blood splattered all over the side of it, and the bones scattered around it hardly attracted my attention, door open with the engine running were all I really cared about, provided none of the little monsters was hiding inside of it.
As she moved inside our circle, still carrying her little dog, I asked “You’re parents?”
She calmly answered “Dead, FiFi and I hid in the laundry room. FiFi always tells me when one of those things is nearby, she growls.”
She was either the toughest seven year old I had ever met, or in shock. My bet was shock, but the last thing we needed right now was a crying, screaming and terrified little girl unable to help herself to survive. Terrified was okay, heck we were all terrified!
I quickly laid out my plan to get to the vehicle and try to escape by driving away. Normally it was at least a half-hour trip to the marina from here, usually longer because of early morning traffic. While traffic wouldn’t be much of a problem, abandoned cars certainly would. I was informed that I was driving, mainly because I knew the route best.
We moved forward as a group and exited via the double wide main door. It slid open smoothly when we approached just as it probably had for the first monster. Shreds of blood soaked clothing were scattered among the bones in the entryway, all that was left of the doorman.
When we got beside the empty vehicle, a quick glance was all it took to confirm that it was indeed empty. Now it was time to do the dangerous evolution, get inside. We had no problem until I turned to enter, then the dog began softly growling. I glanced to my right, out the front window, and saw several of the little monsters running into view down the street.
I slid into my seat and slammed the door shut. Frankly, I didn’t see where the little monsters could be much of a problem because I couldn’t conceive of how a creature little taller than a chicken could conceivably break through a vehicles safety glass. Then I saw why they were running, they were being chased by a pair of the medium sized monsters!
As I stomped on the gas pedal to get us moving I knew without a doubt that those creatures would easily destroy the safety glass in their haste to get at the meal inside the van. Behind me I heard JJ yell “Two large ones, with a pair of small ones” and the sounds of him attempting to kick out the large glass panel. Then I heard “Some escape panel” and the sharp bark of his handgun as he finally shattered the tough safety glass with a pair of bullets.
The van lurched as I ran over one of the small monsters that were running towards us in the road. I then shouted “Hold on” as I jumped the curb to use the sidewalk because the road ahead was blocked with vehicles. They weren’t necessarily abandoned since most of the people inside the cars had stayed there thinking that they were safe from the monsters. They had all paid for that bad decision with their lives.
One of the oncoming medium sized monsters jumped over a car and landed on the sidewalk not more than fifty feet in front of me. Its friend had circled to the right and was now closing on that side of our van. Since I had no choice, I put the gas pedal to
the floor and the Mercedes passenger van responded by roaring forward, directly into the monster ahead of us!
Before I had gotten in I had noticed that the front of the van had a jury rigged heavy bumper, more than capable of moving cars out of the way, attached to its front. It served well now, preventing damage to the front of our vehicle as we smashed into the monster at almost forty miles an hour! We almost escaped unscathed except the monsters head impacted the windshield and, suddenly, it became a maze of cracked glass that was difficult to see through.
The impact of our hitting the monster head on had knocked everyone from their seats although it hadn’t slowed our forward momentum very much. The monster coming at us from the side, seeing that its quarry was getting away, attempted to jump on top of our van and landed only slightly behind us. I heard a roar of rage but I was far more concerned about the monster attempting to get through the weakened windshield directly in front of me, especially when that windshield began to crumble under its onslaught!
Since I couldn’t see where I was going I eased off the gas pedal and slammed on the brake! That gave me my desired result as the monster flew off the front of the van, landing on its side just a few feet in front of my truck. As it struggled to get back up I