It seemed like we were cooked, surrounded by rabid, unearthly creatures foaming at the mouth. They circled in like vultures, ready to peck at our carcasses.
“We need to team up,” Yolanda said urgently as she turned to Izzy. “Your brawn, my brains. I know most of their weak spots, and you can take them down easily."
"What about Florence?"
“He is on his own,” Yolanda replied without hesitation.
Izzy rolled her eyes and called over to me, "Be careful, Florence. I know you can handle yourself. But call out for me if you need help!"
I stood a few feet away, watching on. It felt strange yet satisfying—seeing them together again—Izzy ripping and tearing through the creatures like some well oiled machine, and Yolanda calculating one thing after another in her head.
Meanwhile, I was facing my own nightmare situation.
The first creature—a burger-sized toad that spat acid, lunged forward. I grabbed it by the lips, pulled out my pocket knife from my sock, and gripped it tight as I sliced through the toad’s smelly, gelatinous flesh. I closed my eyes to mask the pain and could barely hold my breath, but I kept moving.
More mutant frogs appeared as I scraped the slime and guts onto the sides of my pants. I flinged my knife around sporadically, slicing a few in the process, hoping that would fend them off, but to no avail; they continued to multiply and spit acid.
My fingers felt the edge of a shelf, and a six-pack of fizzy soda bumped into my metal funnel hat. I needed some sort of explosion to break down the horde, and I thought hard until I came up with a quick solution—a trick we used to do with Mentos in elementary, making a paper mache volcano erupt.
I stuffed the sodas with pocket Mentos, shook them hard, and hurled them toward the cluster of amphibians. Each can burst into a sticky sea of diabetes.
"Sweet," I muttered with a shaky grin on my face.
The acid pond beneath me expanded and started to dissolve my shoe soles. I yelled in pain as I leaped, trying to dodge all I could, broken glass, piss, soda, and blood until I stumbled over a spray can.
And then it hit me.
I pulled my lighter out and sparked the idea of creating a makeshift flamethrower. I remember the cool kids in high school showing me the same trick.
Spray can plus lighter equals torch. The one time math matters.
The flames blazed across the room, turning one creature after another into mere ash.
The smell of scorched flesh filled the air once the toads were toast, and everything seized around me.
Something doesn't seem right.
A low growl reverbed across the walls.
The temperature dropped, and I fell into a cold sweat.
A predator casted over me.
A dog-lizard, ominously clacking around with its scaly feet atop the ceiling. Their reptilian eyes felt my presence as it dropped to the ground, scraping among its leathery paws and sticking its long tongue at me in a mocking tone.
The room shrunk as we waited to see who would strike or slip up first.
I gripped my knife, trembling slightly in fear. I could not look away from the beast.
I went for the kill and managed to slice their tail off before it sunk its teeth into my arm, causing me to holler in pure pain as the pocket knife slipped from my hand.
I tried to unhinge their jaw and poke their eye out, but it would not allow. I grabbed a plank and swung it around without thought, which caused the creature to back off. While it crawled along the walls, I found a bowl of nails and nailed them to the plank with a hammer I’d grabbed from Yolanda’s toolbox.
The dog lizard continued to snap its jaws at me. With every move I made, the creature was one step ahead, playing mind games. I noticed its speed went clockwise, so I went counterclockwise to match its rhythm.
With my last bastion of strength, I lifted the plank and slammed it deep into its skull, with its cold blood gushing out.
The creature stumbled until it collapsed with a heavy thud, seizing its movement and bleeding out.
My head swam around as I felt the warmth of my own blood dripping through my clothes. I collapsed to my knees and fell to the side, screaming internally. Somewhere in the haze, I searched for my cell to call for a lifeline—Edita.
The phone buzzed once, twice as my heart skipped a beat.
“Hello?” Edita’s voice sounded softer than I remembered.
“Edita,” I whispered, wrapping my shirt around my affected arm to slow the bleeding. “I… just wanted…to say…”
“Florence? Are you okay??” Her voice sharpened, sensing something was off.
But before I could respond, the dog-lizard creature reappeared, its rugged teeth sinking into my phone with a sickening fatal crunch. The display phased out and the battery oozed as I helplessly stared at the carnage.
“Fuck!” I cried out, desperately trying to push it back, but it was too strong for me to handle. My legs felt like jelly and I couldn't feel my arm.
The pain was unbearable, a reminder that I wasn’t invincible. I tried to call on the monster inside me—but nothing happened. Maybe I was too weak. Maybe I wasn't angry enough. Either way, all I had was barely clinging on to the life I still have.
Suddenly, Izzy came into into view, launching herself at the dog-lizard, saving my ass.
“Get the hell off him!” she yelled, slamming her raw knuckles squarely into the creature’s snout.
Blow after blow, Izzy landed a flurry of unrelentless punches, turning the beast into nothing but giblets of unidentifiable meat.
Yolanda walked over and turned to me with a half-smile.
“Oh. You are still alive."
“Barely,” I shot back with bitterness. “Thanks to you.”
We both turned in horror to look at Izzy. She was standing over the corpse of the dog-lizard, catching her breath, blood splattered across her clothes and body.
Yolanda crouched beside the mangled body and poked it with the plank, wincing as its limbs twitched.
“Um, I am… pretty positive it is dead now."
“Just double-checking,” Izzy replied, stomping out the creature one last time.
As the tension slowly phased out, Yolanda’s attention drifted to my phone. Its screen still flickered, and a distorted sound emitted from the speakers.
Izzy lifted me up, attempting to stabilize me. “If you’re done making calls, we need to get you patched up.”
My body felt like it was shutting down as my life force felt drained.
I hadn’t even had time to process everything when a massive shadow loomed above us.
A giant bunny bat, its wings flapping hard enough to knock over shelves, its eyes glowing with a monstrous rage.
“Shit,” I muttered. “This one’s different.”
Despite my condition, I rose up with a short burst of energy, grabbed my plank, and charged towards it, but the creature was too quick for me. It hissed while it swiped at me with a single blow, sending me reeling across the floor. I hit the ground hard. My head spun as I struggled to get up; my limbs were too brittle, and I was too weak to respond.
I could barely make out Yolanda’s voice yelling at me.
All I could hear was, “Useless pendejo!”.
Izzy, somewhere behind me, shouted my name, but I could barely make out what she was saying either.
The ringing in my ears was unbearable.
Yolanda yanked the plank from my hand and broke through the glass of an emergency bat case, grabbing the last resort—a metal baseball bat. She swung hard, but the monster ricocheted the hit back at her like a boomerang, knocking back her and Izzy. I started regaining some of my energy until I was hit and sent back to the ground.
The three of us lay there, bruised and out of breath, the creature hovering over us, ready to finish us off.
Then, out of the blue, the echo of a shotgun blast scattered throughout the room. The bunny bat screeched in agony and flailed around before it collapsed to the ground, gasping its last shrieking breath.
The foul beast was slain.
Lily stormed in, impatient and full of alcohol, holding a double-barrel shotgun. “Ça a pris du temps, huh?,” she muttered, looking down at the dead creature and kicking it to the side like it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
I grabbed on to her for dear life, relieved to see her paper bag face. “Lily…” I breathed. “…you saved our asses”.
Then, I slid off of her, pummeling to the ground.
Yolanda and Izzy stared at her slack-jawed, baffled at the sight of the giant masked figure.
“Who the hell is this and why is she back here?” Yolanda snapped.
"Hi! I’m Foil’s neighbor, Lily Applebum! I drove Foil over here and I got tired of waiting. And well… I had a teeny tiny bit to drink. It tends to happen when I have to wait for a long period of time.
Izzy suddenly became visibly excited in recognition. “Oh yeah, I remember you! You happen to still have some on you?”
Lily nodded, rummaging through her purse absentmindly. “Maybe…..no.”
Yolanda was livid. “Nobody was supposed to know about this!”
Izzy wiped blood off of her own face. “People were going find out eventually, Yolanda. This was bound to blow up in your face.”
Lily looked around, glassy-eyed. “Excusez-moi, can we go home? The room’s spinning, and I feel very, very confused..."
“No one’s going anywhere,” Yolanda said firmly, “not until this mess is cleaned up.”
Everyone including the monkey frowned at her and I said something I should have a long time ago.
“No. Clean up your own damn mess, Yolanda.”
She blinked her eyes in bewilderment, searching desperately for support, but no one came to her aid—not even Izzy.
“Ezekial?” she asked, her voice breaking.
"Are you nuts? Sure, let’s stick around and get dissected," Izzy said flatly. "I'm going with Florence."
"WAIT! WAIT, come back! I cannot do this alone!" she shouted in one last desperate plea.
Without another word, we left her to deal with the mess she’d created, putting distance between ourselves and Yolanda as a great weight was lifted off our shoulders.
This could be the start of something greater.
Comments (0)
See all