Chapter 7
1278 Words
Asher’s pov
The car was a smoking ruin. Those were closing in. I didn't pause to grieve the vehicle i just ran, the duffel bag containing a few bottles of water and my father’s toolbox bouncing against my shoulder. My feet slammed against the pavement, fast and true.
The panic had burned away, leaving a cold, clear focus that felt alien yet familiar. I needed cover. Not the chaos of the main road, but silence.
I sprinted toward the residential fringe backing the industrial zone. I found a small, dark house, its windows taped with fading "For Sale" signs. I kicked in the back door. It was silent, dusty, and empty.
I sank onto the wooden floorboards, the tire iron clattering beside me. The silence was overwhelming, punctuated only by my ragged breathing and the frantic pulse drumming behind my eyes. I was alive. I was alone.
Mom. Dad.
They were gone. The raw, sickening horror of the hospital, the black eyes, the snapping jaw it wasn't a dream. It was the new reality.
The silence pressed in like a hand around my throat.
I forced one breath… then another. My chest burned, but my footsteps had been too loud far too loud. If the creatures heard me, they’d already be
A floorboard creaked.
Not mine.
I froze.
Every muscle in my body locked, my fingers tightening around the tire iron until my knuckles screamed.
Another sound, low and wet, came from deeper inside the house.
“…No,” I whispered. “Not here. Not now please.”
A shadow shifted at the end of the hallway. Slow. Dragging.
My pulse spiked.
Something scraped across the floor, long nails, or claws, or whatever the hell those things were.
I swallowed hard.
“Hey,” I whispered to myself. “If you’re going to die, at least go down swinging.”
I rose to my feet silently, pressing my back against the wall.
A soft, wet sniffing noise filled the hallway, like something testing the air.
Then a voice.
Not human.
“Haaa… h…hunnnn…”
My blood iced.
The creature limped into the red light leaking from the kitchen window. Its head was wrong tilted, cracked at the base like a broken doll its mouth hanging open as black drool dripped onto the floorboards.
“Oh, God…” I breathed.
It jerked at the sound just a twitch, fast like a glitching animation and its empty black eyes snapped toward me.
“Nope.”
I bolted for the living room.
The creature Shrieked, the sound drilling straight through my skull. It lunged, hitting the wall so hard the drywall exploded into powder.
I stumbled over a fallen lamp.
It closed in.
“Back off!” I swung the tire iron with everything I had.
The blow cracked against its jaw bone splintered, black fluid spraying across my cheek. The creature staggered but didn’t fall. It grabbed the tire iron with inhuman strength and yanked it from my grip.
“Seriously?” I hissed. “That’s cheating.”
It lunged again.
I rolled under its arm and scrambled to my feet.
The duffel bag thudded against my back, and something inside shifted the clatter of metal.
Dad’s toolbox.
My fingers found the heaviest thing inside as I ripped the zipper open.
A hammer.
I spun just as the creature launched itself at me again.
“Not today!”
The hammer crushed into its temple with a sickening c***k. The creature dropped to its knees, twitching violently. I didn’t wait. I swung again. And again. And again.
Black ichor splattered the floor.
Finally, its body slumped, lifeless.
I staggered back, gasping.
“Oh, God… Dad,” I whispered. “You’d have said I was holding the hammer wrong.”
A laugh escaped me. Broken. Shaking. Almost hysterical.
Then.
Thump.
Outside.
A shadow passed by the boarded window.
Then another.
And another.
They’d heard the fight.
“Shit.”
I grabbed the duffel bag, wiped the hammer on my jeans, and ducked behind the kitchen island. The creatures outside sniffed the air angry, hungry, hunting.
One of them hissed.
“Okay,” I whispered, pressing my forehead against the cold cabinet. “Plan. Think. Come on.”
A sudden loud BANG against the front door made me jolt.
“Nope. No, no, no can’t stay here.”
The door groaned under a second hit. Wood splintered.
I clutched the duffel tighter.
“Alright,” I muttered. “We move. We run. We survive.”
A third hit smashed the door off its hinges.
My breath stopped.
Black eyed silhouettes crawled inside fast, jerky, wrong.
I sprinted toward the back window, threw my father’s hammer and the tool box through it, and dove out as glass shattered around me.
I hit the ground and rolled, gasping as my ribs protested but I kept moving.
The shrieks behind me rose like a chorus of Hell.
I didn’t look back.
Because looking back gets you killed.
The night air slapped my face as I ran, lungs burning, legs screaming.
Behind me, the creatures spilled out of the shattered window like spiders too many, too fast.
“Keep moving,” I gasped. “Just keep moving!”
Branches whipped my arms as I barreled into the backyard trees. Something snarled behind me.
Then
WHAM.
A weight slammed into my back, taking me to the ground.
“No get off!”
Claws shredded the soil inches from my face. Hot rancid breath washed over my neck.
I twisted, kicking wildly. My boot connected with something soft.
The creature screeched and stumbled back.
I scrambled to my feet, grabbing a broken tree branch.
It wasn’t a weapon. It wasn’t even sharp.
But it was all I had.
The creature lunged again, jaws wide.
“Stay back!”
I swung the branch.
It snapped clean in half against its skull.
“Great,” I panted. “Just what I needed. More useless wood.”
A second creature dropped from a tree above me with a guttural hiss.
Its joints cracked as it crawled toward me on all fours.
“Oh, come on,” I muttered. “You guys don’t take breaks?”
The first creature rushed me again.
I dodged, barely, the claw grazing my shoulder.
Pain shot through my arm.
“Fine,” I growled. “Let’s end this.”
I grabbed a fist sized rock and hurled it at the second creature’s face.
It stumbled, shrieking.
The first one lunged.
It flew over me
And slammed head first into a tree.
It lay twitching. Not dead. Not even close. But slowed.
The other one crawled toward me again, its voice a broken whisper.
Huuuun…gerrrr…”
The creature’s head jerked violently at the sound of my voice.
It hissed and launched itself.
I picked up the hammer and the tool box and sprinted
My legs felt like fire, like they were shredding with each step.
The forest blurred around me.
Branches cracked.
Leaves crunched.
Every sound behind me was getting closer.
Then a voice low, trembling cut through the chaos.
“Stop right there!”
I skidded to a halt.
Someone stood ahead of me.
A young man.
A stranger.
Holding a crossbow with shaking hands.
His eyes were wide, panicked, fixed on me.
“D…Don’t come any closer!” he yelled.
I held up my hands. “I’ve not been bitten”
“I don’t know that, why’s there blood dripping from your hand?!”
“One of them scratched me, I wasn’t bitten”
He hesitated. His grip faltered.
Then the creature burst from the bushes beside him.
“Look out!”
He spun too slowly.
- Writer
