Today is Wednesday. Please enjoy the next installment of The Invasion.
Chapter 24: Out of the Frying Pan.
The sounds of people burning and clawing at the walls as they in turn burned began to die down beneath them. Oqia rubbed her head as her vision cleared again. She rushed over to Abbyn and poked him.
“Thanks!” she cried.
Abbyn wiped his nose and grinned at her.
“You’re both nuts,” Xake said looking at the two of them.
“No, that would be you,” Vaei said, “You charged that thing! You actually attacked it and… you’re alive.”
Sabbi walked over to them.
“What the hell was that?!” she shouted.
“If I could tell you that then we would be a lot further from here then we are,” Vaei said.
“Where’s the rat?” Aehab asked as he walked over.
He looked at Sabbi and grinned, “She’s kind of the reason we are all in this in the first place.”
At that moment there was a white flash.
“Poof!” cried the rat as she appeared!
She held her hands up as if commending herself on her accomplishment.
“Speak of the devil’s ride…,” Xake mumbled.
“Safes for now!” she cried looking at him and rushed over.
Beneath them there was a loud noise and a thud against the door.
“So you are saying she can tell me?” Sabbi said pointing at the small dirty rodent that had just appeared from thin air.
“Pretty much.” Aehab said.
Sabbi walked over to the rat and knelt down in front of her.
“Can you tell me what is going on?” she said tiredly.
The rat looked at her for a moment then her eyes gained a slight reddish glow deep inside of them.
“Noes, noes!” the rat cried shaking her head, she looked at Aehab “You’re special, alls of you! Theres are enough of you to stops them, find the others before they finds you again!”
“So that’s it? You destroyed my home and my entire life…”
Xake looked at Sabbi, “Your life went up in smoke when the building two blocks down the street blew up because a ‘Fiendling’ decided to torch it.”
Sabbi sighed looking at her hands. In that moment she felt helpless, in all of her life all of her saved possessions and belongings were now burnt rubble four floors beneath her in a once nice apartment in a once nice part of the city. She scowled and looked at Xake. Before she could speak there was another thud on the door.
Vaei blinked and walked towards the door; she held her head at an angle as she approached. Xake followed curiously as did Oqia. As they reached the door there was another loud thud against it. Vaei looked at Oqia and Xake.
“No way anyone survived down there,” Xake said quietly.
He looked at the door and then got down on his hands and knees and peered under it. There was a pause and then Xake sat up.
“We have problems,” he whispered.
“We sure as hell do!” bellowed Sabbi in frustration.
She got to her feet and stormed towards the door. Vaei grabbed her shoulders as she passed.
“You don’t want to do tha–,” as she spoke fingers slid beneath the door and reached for Xake’s face. Xake gave a cry and leapt back.
He looked up at Vaei and was about to speak when the fingers slid back and then came through again and curled up around the base of the door.
“No you don’t!” Xake cried, lunging forwards he slashed the fingers off with his knife.
The blade slid easily through them and they fell to the floor. There was a pause as they all listened for the screams of agony of the victim who had just lost a hand full of fingers.
Xake crouched again and peered under the door. To his surprise a pair of glowing eyes stared at him. He could hear quiet sniffing noises as he stared into those eyes. Xake got to his feet and looked at Sabbi and Vaei.
“We will have to explain what we know later. For now, we all have to survive,” he said, “Those aren’t people in there anymore, whatever it did made them very different.”
A garbled scream emanated from behind the door as Xake stood up and then there was another terrible thud against it. There was silence for a moment and then they became aware of a quiet hiss from behind the door. A weird hissing noise akin to the noise burning paper makes as it gently smolders. Xake took a careful step towards the door. His forehead furrowed in worry, he gently and carefully touched the door.
“Crap,” Xake whispered and pulled his hand away. He looked at his finger tips and rubbed them together. “They’re heating the door up,” he said.
Xake turned as he spoke to look at Vaei and Sabbi only to see Sabbi staring worriedly at Vaei who was staring at the door like a vulture at a ragged old corpse. She blinked as she realized he was looking at her and said “What?”
“What? What’s with the look?” Xake said.
“They’re not like us anymore, they don’t belong here… I think I can… maybe…”
“This isn’t a time for maybe… you gotta or step back.”
Vaei looked down at Xake and a weird smile swept across her face. As this happened there was a loud pop as the door exploded. Pieces of razor-sharp, red-hot metal hurtled at them like knives from an assassin. Xake felt many pings of pain all over his back as the shrapnel slammed into him. Vaei raised her arms to fend off the incoming shrapnel and Sabbi stepped behind Vaei. Xake scowled and turned, an expression of fury turning his face into a snarl.
The expression quickly faded as he, Vaei and Sabbi saw what had been concealed behind the door. Hundreds of burnt and smoldering corpses of those who had once been Sabbi’s neighbors stood there. Flames still leapt from some of them. At first they all stood still but then, as one, they charged.
“This day is seriously high in the suck department,” Xake growled.
He turned to face the charging wall of humanoid corpses.
“Need a hand?” Abbyn said stepping up beside Xake.
A grin spread across the rat’s features.
“Let’s do this,” he said lowering his face towards the approaching mass.
Behind Xake and Abbyn, Sabbi stared at the wall of charging burned corpses–her once neighbors bent on killing her and those around her. The last ones alive in the entire building. A wave of fear ran through her like a sickening poison killing the flesh of the innocent. She gripped the knife she still held in her hands.
“Always liked kitchen knives,” she thought.