Survival

by Chris Wright

  Enough. The creature rolled itself around the car, the cab seeming to ripple in perfect synchronisation, as if the exterior was made of jelly. Inside the car Monique was screaming and the cab driver was trying to open the door to jump free, but was being sucked back by some kind of force. Monique tried the door as well but was repelled by some kind of force, then she desperately kicked at the window to break it. As she did this, she felt an all-pervading roar that seemed to arise not just all around the cab, but within it and her own mind too.

  “Monique!” Danny screamed edging slowly closer, much too slow to be able to make any difference to what was unfolding before his eyes.

  The creature and the cab were pulsing together as Danny heard static-like sounds slither into the air from the space around them. Then in what seemed like slow-motion to Danny, the all-formed but also-formless entity gradually started to fade, the blue flashes and strings of tentacle-like formations seemed to blink away, accompanied by a sudden pressurised 'whoosh' that caused Danny's ears to pop. The cab appeared to turn itself inside out, the screams from Monique and the Cab Driver also seeming to turn inside out, echoing hauntingly down the road. Danny could make out what looked like dissected bodies intermingled with the cab itself. It looked like they had both been turned inside out along with the car and the space around it. Their desperate cries dissipated across the city, their last breaths chillingly audible for all to hear while their bodies lay inside out, twisted into an unrecognisable gruesome patterned network of organs and flesh. Then, in one instant, Danny's hideous view seem to rattle, the symbiosis of car and human emitting a piercing sound, and with that it seemed to disappear into a void, sucked away from existence. The void quickly reassembled the part of reality it had sprung into as it retreated to its own domain, the road and landscape looking as pristine and trouble free as it had been only minutes before.

  Danny dropped to his knees, the pain from his head wound searing through his forehead. He sat there stunned, he was so shocked that he was unable to bring any tears to his eyes, he was just staring straight ahead unable to comprehend what had happened.

  He looked around at other people too, they were all looking at where the inside out human cab used to be, the same shocked expression on their faces. There was no way this was an hallucination, everyone had seen it, they were all looking at it too. He sat there, shell-shocked, for what seemed like hours, his mind smacking confused thoughts from one side to the other, trying to make one of them fit some normal narrative of experience, but none of them did. He eventually got to his feet and saw that police had arrived. Someone must have reported what happened, but what do you say to explain this? That would have been one heck of a conversation.

  The police gathered together all the witnesses and they took statements from everyone. They all described seeing the same extraordinary series of events, no matter their viewpoint. The police scratched their heads, utterly confused and examined the whole area. They could see no sign of anything ever happening, there were no tyre tracks, no marks on the road, other than Danny's stream of blood leading up the road. There was nothing to suggest anything at all had happened. They had over thirty scared and upset witnesses, all saying the same thing, so it seemed clear to them that something happened there.

  It was Danny's turn to be questioned and he told then everything he could remember, no matter how weird it sounded. If he was going to be classed as weird then at least all of these other witnesses were weird too. He explained his relationship with Monique, what they had been doing that morning, where they'd been and what they talked about. The police officers had never heard such crazy tales, but the fact so many witnesses could corroborate this ludicrous chain of events clearly indicated that they all believed they saw the same thing.

  They made their way back to the Sycamore Stop to investigate there, that was after all where everyone said it had started. They interviewed more people inside the bar, all clearly terrified. They told them of the strange form of the creature, as if it was reality itself in creature form, and about the other victims who had been sucked or eaten by whatever it was. The eye witnesses went on and on, the tales wild, but all saying the same thing. There was no evidence of anything in the bar other than some tables and chairs being knocked over and thrown to the side. The Barman was as adamant as everyone else that what he saw had been real. The officers were still doubting the specifics of the accounts, they had to, they had never heard anything like it. There had clearly been some mass hallucination going on here. They heard of these kinds of things happening before, so that seemed to be their best guess as to what was going on. The chairs and tables were knocked over by scared people as they had this shared delusion, that's what they would write up on their report. Someone had already tipped off a local TV station and a reporter nearby had already made it to the bar and began questioning everyone about this. She was as sceptical about their tales of monsters and vanishing people as the police. It seemed too incredible to be true, like dragons and unicorns, it was just plain silly and there was nothing to report other than a bunch of crazy people sharing some mass hallucination.

  “I have a video camera set up in the corner” The Barman said to one of the Officers, “That will prove what we're saying is true”.

  The so far unimpressed reporter overheard this and dashed over to him.

  Brandon’s House

  “There” Danny said pointing to Brandon's TV, “Can you seem them?”

  Brandon was too busy looking at whatever was going on in the middle of the screen to notice anything else, but looked over to where Danny's finger was pointing.

  That's when he saw them. Shadowy forms that seemed to flicker in and out briefly for the odd second, before vanishing again.

  The afternoon had become something like out of a movie. Brandon had been sitting down, chilling out watching the local game on TV, pizza and beer in hand, when there was a furious banging at his front door. When he opened it, Danny was there, looking dishevelled, dried blood covering his head and down his T-shirt, a terrified look in his eyes. He welcomed him in and his first question was obviously what on earth had happened to him. Danny sat down on the sofa, fidgeting wildly, looking both confused and angry. He picked up Brandon's remote and changed the channel.

  “Hey I was watching the Falcons game” exclaimed Brandon angrily.

  “This is what happened to me” He said pointing at the screen as a local channel flashed up headlines of the breaking news.

  Brandon sat down and watched the news forecaster seemingly as bewildered as Danny, as she recounted a tall tale of a mysterious creature that no one could fully describe in any meaningful detail, that appeared in a local bar, devoured some customers and then set off to turn a cab and its occupants inside out, making them vanish into thin air. This was crazy, this was surely some kind of joke Brandon thought.

  “It was Monique” Danny said as the news coverage continued unabated.

  “What? The monster? What are you talking about?”

  “In the cab, it was Monique” Danny said as he put his head in his hands.

  “I don't understand Danny”.

  “That thing they're talking about on the news, it was going for Monique. I tried to chase them and do something, but I just couldn't get there” Danny replied, his voice starting to show cracks in its fluency and tears beginning to emerge from his eyes.

  Brandon couldn't believe any of this. He looked back at the news report as the reporter showed clip after clip of eye witnesses, all of them claiming to have seen this complete madness.

  “It's all true Brandon, I was there, it happened” Danny said as the news reporter, Jane, told everyone watching that they had exclusive video of the carnage from the bar.

  This piqued Brandon's curiosity, making sure he studied what came next closely. The camera set up in the bar showed a terrified Monique appear from the restrooms, grabbing Danny who was sat at a table and then running out of the Bar. Danny looked in the direction of the restrooms before
taking off straight after Monique. The camera then showed what looked like interference in the video, possibly some malfunction, but what came next caught Brandon completely off-guard, despite what he had just been told by eye witnesses. The 'interference' seemed to be some kind of creature. It certainly moved like a creature, as it bounded through the bar, morphing and changing its shape fluidly and continually, seeming to grab people in it’s' path and absorb them into itself. After a few seconds, it had whirled across the room like a tornado, sucked up anyone in its path and then disappeared through the entrance, drifting through the glass without any resistance. Brandon was stunned. If it was a hoax it was a very realistic one. But it couldn't have been a hoax, Danny said he had witnessed it and he just saw him sat there in the video.

  “I don't understand Dan, what the fuck was that?”

  “I don't know” He replied shaking his head, tears falling into all the aged grooves on his face, “When I got outside, I tried to catch up with Monique, with that thing following us both, and then it overtook me. She got in a taxi, but it caught up with them and it got them. They were there one minute, the next they had been twisted out of shape, the whole damn thing, them and the cab moulded together.... then they just vanished man, they just disappeared into thin air”

  Brandon sat there open mouthed as the news report went on, it reported the almost unbelievable details of what happened to the cab, in more detail than Danny had just wanted to relay and then they started to show the video again.

  “There” Danny said pointing to Brandon's TV, “Can you seem them?”

  Brandon had been looking at the Interference monster in such horrified fascination that he hadn't noticed what Danny had seen on the rest of the screen. Every few seconds there appeared to be some kind of wispy shadow fade into sight, definitely in the shape of a figure, and then it would just as quickly fade back out. There seemed to be many of them, dotted around the bar, flashing in and out of existence multiple times.

  “Shadow figures!” Brandon shouted in a high-pitched voice, “Shit Dan, I, ah damn...”

  Brandon had read about shadow figures. He had started to see them today for himself, fleetingly, but he knew what he had seen. He started out trying to deny it, but the more it went on the less he could argue with his senses.

  “I saw them today” Danny said, “and Monique said she had been seeing them for days. I didn't believe her at first until all this happened, and then they seemed to be all around”

  Brandon was shaken by all of this, not as much as Danny was, but enough to get his pulse racing.

  “So, Monique...she's gone?” Brandon asked tearfully.

  Danny nodded, in the back of his mind still hoping that this had all been a tremendous nightmare and any moment he would wake up and discover that they were all okay and none of these insane things had happened. Please let that be true. But he never woke up, this was all happening right now. He wept for Monique, bewildered and saddened. If he had taken more notice of the shadow people, he may have been able to do something. He didn't know what, and he knew deep down that the chances are that there was nothing he could have done, but he knew of these creatures and they could have been a sign that something else was going to happen. It left him with a gnawing guilt that was eating him inside.

  “It's no coincidence Dan” He said, “The shadows and that creature, they've got to be related, there's no other way”

  He grabbed his beer and took a long gulp, tossing his half full pizza box aside. He had no appetite now. All he had was a thirst, a thirst for answers and some resolution, but he didn't have one, not a complete one anyway. They began talking about what they had each experienced. Danny went first and relayed everything that had happened to him the last few days. The people who disappeared, which of course Brandon said he never knew, the odd details that changed around him, and the continual losing of time. He then went into detail about the events of that day. How they thought that there could be something in the city's water supply causing all these mental anomalies, and then ending with the shadow monsters, the unidentifiable creature and the tragic events Monique had had to endure. Brandon took his turn and explained to Danny about how he had started seeing the shadow figures around a week ago, it was subtle at first, but they gradually became more persistent, appearing and disappearing from his peripheral vision almost hourly. He thought at first that he was overworked, then going mad, and then decided to look into what they were. He had found numerous answers and wasn't sure which one was the right one.

  “What do people say there are?” Danny asked, eager to know more.

  “Well when I really started delving deep into it, I found that they are mentioned throughout history” Brandon said, Danny nodding slowly, prompting him to continue, “Early texts speak of Shadow people as some a sort of paranormal apparition. They're normally seen in the corner of the eye, passing by quickly, and then disappearing, like we've both seen. But the ancient beliefs make a clear distinction between the forces of evil and shadows. Shadows aren't evil, they exist as a line between good and evil, somewhere in-between. The forces of evil are afraid of the shadows”

  Danny's eyes widened, Brandon seemed to be saying that these figures aren't evil, but then why were they here suddenly and what was the connection with the creature?

  “So, they aren't the ones who caused it? What about that fucking thing I experienced, what you saw on the TV, what have they got to do with that?”

  “Well one ancient text I found online said that shadows protect certain people and that demons fear shadows and their power. When a human being is protected by a shadow, that person can't be attacked by demons or other evil supernatural entities” Brandon replied.

  “So, who are they protecting? They certainly weren't protecting Monique, or if they were, they were doing a pretty shitty job doing it” Danny said butting in.

  “That's what I am trying to figure out Dan” Brandon replied quickly, “I also read that only the spirits of the deceased enter the afterlife, shadows can't go to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. Shadows just maintain a balance between good and evil”.

  Brandon sat there thinking hard about what it could all mean, what sense could be made of it.

  “Okay, so, let me just suggest something then” Danny said, who had been thinking hard about what Brandon had just told him, “If they weren't protecting Monique then they were protecting someone else, and Monique just happened to be able to see them. So, they're protecting someone we know, as we're both seeing them too”.

  “Yeah, I guess they could be protecting me or you, and the other is just seeing them too. Or it could be someone else and we're both not protected”.

  They were both silent for a few moments, each of them trying to piece together a workable theory.

  “I was just thinking about what you said about there being something in the city's water, but unless that report on the TV is also a complete hallucination, we're both seeing then something definitely happened” Brandon said, his mind twirling his thoughts ever deeper.

  “So, whatever has been happening to me before and what happened today are separate things? I don't buy that, it's too much of a coincidence Brandon”

  Brandon agreed that it was a bizarre coincidence, but that didn't stop it being a coincidence, and to be fair, there were much more bizarre things occurring around them at that moment that a strange coincidence didn't appear so strange to him anymore.

  “Well, we'll agree to disagree on that one” said Danny, “but these shadow figures, people, or whatever they are, why are they only protecting one person?”

  “Well they could be protecting more than one, we don't know that it has to be one person, we just know for a fact that Monique wasn't being protected”

  “Do they choose who to protect? Or are they told to protect someone?”

  “Dan, I don't know, we're theorizing here, I only know what I just told you” Brandon replied. He couldn't provide any concrete answers, even these theoretical answers could be co
mpletely wrong, he had no answer sheet to check.

  “Yeah, sorry” Danny said apologetically, he couldn't expect Brandon to have all the answers, especially with something as odd as this, “Of course, we're missing two other things here”

  “Which are?”

  Danny hesitated for one moment, neither point was a particularly satisfying outcome, but they were both possibilities.

  “Well firstly, there's the chance that the ancient texts are incorrect and they don't protect people, they don't live in the line between the good and the bad, they are evil themselves and have been misunderstood”

  “And?”

  “The ancient texts are correct and they are here to try and protect us, but the evil it's encountering is too powerful and they can't do it”.

  They were both very good points and Brandon had to admit that they were stabbing in the dark here. Either of them could be the reality of the situation, but he really hoped that they weren't.

  Saturday - Gina’s Apartment

  Gina awoke with a start. It was another night of disturbed sleep, and she had fleeting memories of strange nightmares where she was being chased by creatures from some kind of folk tale, at least that's how she could recall it. She had woken up numerous times in the night to find herself sweating, half-lucid, and certain that her dreams were spilling out into her bedroom. She had been having a few restless nights all of a sudden, which was very unlike her. She mentioned it to her boyfriend, Tom, but he claimed to have not seen or felt her thrashing around like she thought she had been, and had never heard her cry out. Tom was a very deep sleeper though, so this didn't surprise her in the slightest. He could sleep sitting on the top of a jet engine and not be roused from his slumber.

  She turned over to him and caressed his chest as he gradually started to stir, his eyes opening very slowly before smiling at her. Tom was the love of her life. She'd had many relationships in the past, but they'd never worked out, people just didn't quite get her, but Tom did. He was practically opposite to her in most ways and you would never expect them to strike up a relationship like they had. He was a labourer on construction sites, not taking any direct responsibility himself, and that was the way he liked it. It kept his day simple, not exactly stress free, but he didn't have to carry his work home with him.