Apocalypse Fighter

Chapter 64: 4500 The Swarm Cometh

Sarah brought her daughter, Nancy with her down to the basement. She hoped that the sight of a hungry girl crying might convince Marry to share her food with them. She knew that, upstairs, Elmer would be preparing more wood. Thus, this was a last-ditch effort. If it failed, that would likely be the end of them all.

***

Anyone that wasn’t actively looking for wood remained huddled around the fire. If mutant animals attacked, they foolishly expected that it would save them. When Elmer saw this, he lashed out at the woman closest to him, and she flinched away from him. “You people are idiots!” he exclaimed. “Those mutants are not afraid of fire, and by gathering, you are presenting them a larger target.”

Three days ago, Elmer had learned the hard way that, not only weren’t mutants repelled by fire, they were actually drawn to it. Thus, as long as these people insisted on standing by the fire, they were sitting ducks. If that happened, Elmer thought he would be ecstatic, but when thousands of black mutant mice suddenly flooded into their encampment, he realized how foolish that thought had been. “f**k!” he hissed. “Why are there so many mice?”

Rodger, Sarah’s father, had been the first to spot the red-eyed beasts. Being a retired officer, he did not lack courage, and he immediately began to beat the mice off with a stick. There were too many, though, and he was quickly overwhelmed. Four black mice ran up his leg, climbed to his midsection, and began to burrow into his stomach.  

Rodgers screamed and beat his fists against his abdomen, but it did no good. His eyes bulged as they disappeared inside him, and he collapsed. As he hit the ground, he began to have a seizure. His eyes rolled to the back of his eyes, he began to foam at the mouth, and it was over mere minutes after it had started. Roger was dead.

Sarah ran to her Father’s side, screaming and shouting. She had gone crazy, and she needed to be pulled off of him, lest she become their next meal.

About a hundred black mice swarmed over the corpse of Sarah’s Father, and the sound they made when they ate was unbearable. Half of the people that surrounded the body were screaming and the other half were in shock. The mice were moving around inside of the man, and even though he was dead, his body moved as they moved. His abdominal muscles rippled, and the rippling effect worked its way through his extremities as the vermin burrowed. Occasionally, they came up for air, looked around, squeaked, and went back for more. More than one person vomited.

“His bones…” whined one of the women that had puked. “I can see his bones…”

Another woman turned to Elmer and said, “Can’t you make it stop…?”

 “Forget Roger!” Elmer hissed. “We need to get the f**k out of here. Or do you think they’ll be happy with just one course?!?!”

“B-B-B-But…” the woman stuttered. She looked around, and when she realized that Elmer had ran off without her, she started to panic. She could not move, and it wasn’t long before the black mice found her. They crawled up her legs and entered her body through her genitals.

Elmer and the other men ran away as fast as they could. The world’s gone crazy – he thought absently. No matter which way they ran, they encountered a wall of vermin. They were everywhere. The ground had turned into a horrid black moving mass. One man cried out, “We are doomed!” and he bellyflopped into the infestation, sacrificing himself to the swam.

“I’m not going out like this,” Elmer muttered. He raised his head and looked at the tall building behind him. “I can do this,” he said to himself as he lifted his knife and slit the throat of the woman closest to him. He pushed her to the side, and as the mice swarmed over her, he was able to make progress. He did this over and over again, without apology, until he finally reached the building. Once there, he climbed the pipe that led to the second floor and broke in through an open window.

Down below, the weakest of the group were begging and pleading and screaming as their lives were snuffed out. The stronger among them, though, had followed Elmer’s lead, and they were trying to climb up the pipe the way that he had. But they were too slow, and before long, even they were dead.

After taking a brief break, Elmer stepped back outside and resumed his climb. It was hard work and he was exhausted by the time he reached the fourth floor, so he  took out his knife and prepared to break and enter. He looked back to the ground first, though, and he froze. There was a man approaching, and he was running around at an unnatural speed.

What surprised Elmer was that the man did not stop running when he saw the black tide. Instead, he began to run faster, and the rodents could not catch him. “Damn…” he muttered. “He runs so fast… Is he a mutant?”

The man stopped and shouted, “Mary! Where are you? Where is Steven? Mary! Answer me!”

Elmer turned back to the window, smashed the glass, and climbed inside as carefully as he could.

***

As Richard shouted out the names of his wife and son, the mice swarmed over him. The Eternal Bug was so strong, though, that it healed his body faster than the rodents could eat him. It hurt, of course – it was actually agony – but he was willing to suffer for the sake of his family.

“Marry!” he shouted. “Are you there? Answer me, please!” He looked towards building number fourteen and saw the smoke billowing out of the windows.

Fuck! – he thought - Who did this? Was it the Doctor? Did the police come here to rescue Lora West? And what is up with these mutant mice?