20 The Creature From Kramer World
1473 Words
Peter immediately woke up from his dream.
He sat up to his bed and assessed what he just realized. Peter couldn’t collect any memory of a guy named Ben Duke. He was sure he wasn't his or his friends' friend.
He stormed out of his room to go to Zack and wake him up.
Zack was just there, peacefully sleeping with his hand on his stomach.
Peter started to shake Zack from his sleep. “Zack, Zack!”
Zack groaned. “What now, Peter?”
“Wake up, now! We’re in a situation,” Peter said, looking out of the door of Zack’s room. “Just get up, damn it!” he said and stood up.
Zack sat up and looked at Peter, and he could see the sheer panic painted on his face. He wasn’t surprised nor it affected him in any way. He could see it most of the time. “What happened?” Zack asked.
“Do you know the guy from earlier?” Peter asked.
Zack looked at Peter with confusion. “Who?” Zack asked.
As Peter expected, Zack seemed to not know the guy either.
“Ben Duke. The guy when we’re at the basement earlier,” Peter said.
Zack’s eyes widened at the sudden realization. “That guy?” he asked.
Peter nodded. “We didn’t come with anyone else aside from the four of us before Josh could even be stoned,” Peter explained.
He tried to recall any memories of the guy. “Does Ray know that guy. Because if he does, that’s a different story,” Peter said.
Zack shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno,”
Peter looked at Zack and walked out of the room and went to Ray. Zack followed closely behind Peter.
When he arrived, Peter shook Ray to wake him up. Ray opened his eyes and sat up to see Peter’s face. He looked at Zack, fluttering his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you know Ben Duke? The guy from earlier in the basement?” Peter asked.
Ray looked at Peter and then stared at the wall to think. He turned to Peter, a little surprised to suddenly realize. “No. Who’s that guy?”
Peter shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s like earlier I knew him and now I don’t.”
“What is he? An intruder?” Zack asked.
“Probably,” Peter said and started to think. If Ben Duke was a total stranger and he was neither friends with anyone of them. But how did they seem like they knew him and seemed like they were close to him?
“I don’t understand. How did we instantly know he wasn’t a stranger when he came down the stairs?” Ray asked.
Peter looked at Ray. “I’m thinking that, too,” Peter said.
If he wasn’t a known friend, then who was Ben Duke?
What is Ben Duke? Peter asked himself.
He looked at Zack and Ray, who was now looking at him. “What if he wasn’t actually a friend?” Peter asked. “He might be the creature from the Kramer world.”
“How did we even manage to believe we knew a Ben Duke?” asked Ray.
Zack sighed. “If he’s really the creature from Kramer, his power might be something, like, to deceive. He deceived us that he managed to make us believe he existed in our lives. Hypnotism kinda shits,” Zack said.
“If that’s the case, we need to find him,” Peter said and walked out of Ray’s room to check where Ben Due should’ve been sleeping.
Peter opened the door of the room and found no trace of Ben Duke there.
“We should split up,” Ray suggested as he arrived behind Peter.
Peter only nodded and the three of them separated from each other. Zack was to check the third floor and Ray on the first floor.
Peter went down to the basement to see if Ben Duke was there but he wasn’t, so he ran back to the second floor to check the big rooms there.
Meanwhile, Zack was fascinated to see the big rooms on the second floor, and Ray was growing impatient in finding Ben Duke.
Peter checked the big library, searched behind the shelves, and found nothing there. Ray and Zack went back to the second floor. When he got out of the library, Peter met the two.
“Did you find anything?” Peter asked.
The two looked at each other and shook their heads. Peter walked passed the two and entered another big room, which was the room he checked last time, the room with traps and other stuff.
When he saw something, he froze as he held the door.
“Did you find any—“ Peter raised his hand to stop Ray from talking.
There, they saw Ben Duke sitting on a corner and eating Medusa’s head.
It surely had been put to use, but not the way Peter expected it to be.
Zack, who was a little sensitive to gore content was gagging hard he would vomit anytime. When he couldn’t hold it up for longer, he patted the two and ran something to roll everything out of his disgust.
Ray who gained expertise in using the sword from previously absorbing the spirit fire of the skeleton warrior, took a sword for himself and a shotgun for Zack. Peter took a flail weapon.
The two who were left watching Ben Duke ran to the cellar room down to the basement to take weapons and ran back to the storage room.
Zack came back and took the shotgun from Ray and stormed into the storage room.
A loud bang was heard from Zack’s shotgun, and the three of them saw how Ben Duke’s chest had exploded.
But instead of seeing innards thrown around the place, Ben Duke was just looking at the three of them.
He sure wasn’t a human, as the three of them saw how small leech-like worms reformed the hole on Ben Duke’s chest.
“That’s sick,” Zack commented.
Ben Duke wasn’t formed with flesh, but he was made out of hundreds of thousands of worms.
It was the Kramer creature’s true form.
And as what they saw, Ben Duke was a creature that could form and mimic a creature’s form. In his case, he formed himself like a human and made them have a fake memory of him as their close friend.
“Friends, what are you doing here?” Ben Duke asked in a sinister way possible, the blood of Medusa covered around his mouth. He then stood up and left Medusa’s head on the floor.
“What do we do now?” Zack asked, panicking.
Peter didn’t have time to think and with the flail weapon on his hand, he charged at Ben Duke and attacked him with it. He swung his flail weapon towards Ben Duke and hit his arm.
A handful of leech-like worms were thrown on the floor and only climbed back to Ben Duke.
Ben Duke was grinning that scared Peter and he held Peter’s shoulder to consume him. Ray was quick enough to slice it away from Peter’s shoulder and walked away, brushing off the worms off his shoulder.
Ben Duke was standing still there, looking at Peter like he was his next meal.
Ray now decided to attack. With the sword on his hand, he slashed both Ben Duke’s arms but just like when Peter attacked him, he started to reform his body again.
Peter looked down the floor and stepped on a worm. Although the first try didn’t work, that doesn’t mean he should stop trying.
While the two were facing a dilemma, Zack was aiming for Ben Duke but the two were getting on his way. He stayed behind and waited for the two to getaway.
Once again, Peter used his flail weapons to aim for Ben Duke’s chest and managed to take out a few worms on the floor. He walked to the worms and before they could reach Ben Duke, he crushed them under his shoe, no matter how disgusting it felt.
Ray was now on the move. He stirred the sword with the movement of his wrist and slashed its arms. Like Peter, he crushed them under his shoes. It helped kill a few, but some ended up coming back to Ben Duke.
Peter was thinking. He needed to locate where the invigorating blood was, or if Ben Duke had it. He looked down at the crushed worms and the black mushy liquid that it had.
He grimaced. “That’s not the invigorating blood,” he said, sounding in-denial.
He would think it was if he couldn’t find any invigorating blood in Ben Duke’s body. And to know that, he had to attack him again.
While Ray was busy crushing few worms that crawled the floor, Peter was approaching Ben Duke. He aimed again on Ben’s heart since he didn’t check when Zack shot Ben with the shotgun.
He looked closely and had few worms thrown around, and found nothing in there. He continued to crush the worms. Aside from the worm trying to consume him earlier, Peter saw no other way Ben could attack them.
Meanwhile, Zack finally had the chance to aim for Ben’s head. He didn’t waste the time and fired at Ben Duke’s head.
A group of worms on Ben’s head exploded at Zack’s attempt.
Peter looked at Ben’s head and before Ben could form his head back, he saw something glowing in there.
The invigorating blood.
- Writer
