OTC 9.2 – Night Dread

“Extreme danger detected, magical monster detected. Please retreat, quickly!” For once, Lily’s voice sounded in my eyes with heavy concern. Just as she finished the statement, the archer was dragged into the darkness as his muffled cries were cut short followed by the sound of bones being crushed and what I believed to be dismemberment following the circumstances. “Got it” My voice squeaked back in fear. Just when I was about to turn, my body stiffened again as a voice whispered in my ear. It wasn’t Lily, but my mother’s voice that whispered into my ear.

I felt my heart lodge in my throat as her nostalgic voice graced my ears. Her gentle velvet voice soothed over the fear that had entrapped me several heartbeats ago and I no longer wanted to run.” Don’t worry little one, come to me.” The glistening eyes that stared back at me from within the void of the dark forest soon gave way to my mother’s gentle eyes. Then soon her face appeared from the darkness. I felt something buzz in my ear, like a distant voice calling to me, but the words were incoherent to me.

Soon, everything around me faded from my view – replaced by the old park that used to sit across from my house. The meticulously cut grass that painted the floor with different lanes of green from the lawnmower. The towering sycamore trees that lined the park walkway that cut down the center with a few benches here and there beneath their branches. The vast spotless light blue sky high above. In the center of all this was the most beautiful woman I had ever known, my mother.

She stood, in all her healthy glory, right before me in her black slacks and white blouse. Her long dirty blonde hair tied back into a ponytail with a few loose stray strains here and there. With a gentle expression, she beckoned me to jump into her warm embrace. “Mommy just got off work.” She said softly as she kneeled down to meet my eyes. I was just that simple little kid again that cried when mom left the house and jumped for joy when dad came around.

I felt that buzz again in my ear only slightly louder now. It sounded like a faint echo. I ignored it as I took a step forward. Then a second. A third. Just when I was out of arms reach, I felt a mind-numbingly loud static noise blare in my ears and the peaceful day fell away. The midnight forest came back with vengeance and took my mother away from me. I hadn’t noticed, but I was crying. Tears stained burned as they coursed down my cheeks as the memory of that long destroyed heaven slipped from my grasp

“Isaac, run!” Lily’s voice broke through my trance.

My mother morphed into a pale grotesque monster who looked like it had never seen the sun in its life. It had no hair with skin like a de-feathered chicken. Its eyes glittered as the moonlight reflected off its retinas and it only had two slits for nostrils. Its mouth ran ear to ear as its lower jaw was unhinged like a snake with teeth that resembled that of a shark’s in every aspect. Its neck skin piled by its collar bone like an iguana’s. My mother’s spotless blouse gave way to a muscular chest and a bloated belly that stretched its skin tight.

The arms that beckoned me only a heartbeat ago gave way to those slender arms that pulled the man into the forest earlier. However, they weren’t as slender as they appeared with tight muscles brimming with power. Its didn’t actually have hands, only bone spears morphing out of its forearms. The slacks were replaced by legs that were reversed and bent backward at the knees. Its lower legs were raptor-like as it was hunched down to my eye level. Its maw was stained with fresh red blood as it dripped over its chest and potbelly. Its deep breaths brought with it the smell of decaying animals and iron as it was about to clamp down on me.

My mind raced to catch up just as the monster realized I had broken my trance. The surprise from its face disappeared as its head jutted backward momentarily before it thrust forward to tear at me. I quickly dropped back to the floor and the beast only bit empty air. The sound of its jaws snapping shut sounded like two large books being slammed together with liquid inbetween. It was the only thing I could think of as it reeled backward in surprise again. It looked where I was then looked down and saw me as I brought up my pistol.

I was about to fire but it brought down stabbed at me with its right spear-like arm and I had to roll to the right as it came down. It missed me by a hair and stabbed into the grass. The bone spear was nearly four feet in length and it dug nearly three-fourths of the way into the dirt with only that initial jab. Its eyes shimmered as it glared at me and a frustrated snarl came from its partially opened maw, its muscles contracting as it pulled its spear-like arm from the dirt beside me.

I broke away from the fear that stunned me momentarily and emptied the magazine into its upper arm and chest. Yellow luminescence blood drizzled from the two holes in its arm and more splattered to the dirt from the large group of holes in its chest. Unlike in the movies, I didn’t give out a warcry or anything – just clenched my jaws as the slid locked back as I tried to squeeze off more rounds.

The nightmarish monster waned side to side as it groaned painfully but it didn’t die. The blood wasn’t bright enough to light the surroundings, but it was similar to chem-lights and I could see the bullet holes slowly healing themselves. The bullets I shot into it wasn’t pushed out so I assumed its body was healing around them. “Fuck.” I cursed under my breath and rolled away. I got to my feet and dashed for the slope while I reloaded.

My muscles burned and my lungs wheezed from over-exertion. I eventually stopped when I reached the landing where the swordsman died. I panted heavily as I glanced behind. For a moment, only the moonlit slope and rocks graced my vision. I began to wonder if my eyes had played a trick on me and the beast really didn’t begin to heal. Then a figured that dripped yellow glowing blood began to climb up the slope, mantling over every obstacle.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” I spat as Edward Spearhands’ speed was nothing to laugh at as screeched angrily, almost halfway to me as I dipped away past the rock. It mere moments, I heard the monster’s spurs stabbing the grass behind me and its feet ripping the ground as propelled its body over the rock and landed on the dead man. I told myself not to look, but I was compelled to look. I stopped as I heard the slicing of flesh and saw the monster stabbing at the dead body with intense hate.

It took a few heartbeats for the monster to notice that the person it was killing was already cold and not the one it had chased mere moments ago. It looked around, spotted me, and roared. Yellow blood filled spit fluttered from its mouth before it skewered the body and threw it at me. I took that as my cue to run and the body splattered with a bone-chilling splat against the grass. Thankfully, those two momentary breaks had eased enough stress off my lungs and muscles that it didn’t burn that bad as I scrambled up the grassy slope and finally, back to the crash site.

“Mommy just wants to kill you!” My mother’s voice, mixed with a shriller voice, rang out in the night behind me. I didn’t give the voice the satisfaction of turning back as I made the final sprint to the bird. “Come play with Mommy!” The voice rang out again, but it was mixed with even more voices as something crashed into me. I went down hard and whatever hit me roll off. I looked up as it rolled over me and saw it was the dead man from earlier. “Fuck!” I cursed and turned over with the intention to place more lead into the beast. Only, it beat me to it. Just as I turned around, its pale spear arm came down on my chest.

I’ve always thought of what it would feel like if I was ever stabbed. To my surprise, tonight was not the night I would find out.

I heard a hard “Ding!” and something akin to bones breaking under pressure as I felt my bullet-proof plate dent inward from the force. The bone-spear slipped off me as it made contact with the plate and grazed off to my left. It dug under my vest material and out the side. I felt my vision go dark for several breaths and when I came back, the beast was trying to shake me off. It tried several times, but I clung to its arm for dear life before it roared in rage and started to bring me in to bite like a juicy piece of skewered meat.

I saw my chance and brought up my right arm to blast the ugly-blight-on-nature’s face with American freedom only to find I was barehanded. Even the monstered flinched away when I raised my arm, but then looked back when nothing had happened. Both of us stared death still, looking at the empty hand. Panic filled my face now while the monster grinned. Its eyes glowed like two mosaic moons surrounded by cold pale skin that scrunched up as it grinned.

My mind raced for a solution but I hit a wall when I tried. “The sword!” Lily called out before either of us had made a move. I didn’t hesitate and grabbed the sword’s leather grip and pulled it from its sheath. The monster didn’t seem to care about my struggle as it moved to take bite my head. Even though I was at an odd angle, I swung the sword and slashed across both the monster’s eyes, leaving a large gash that welled with luminescence yellow blood. The beast bellowed with a mixture of pain and rage.

I finally let go now that I had taken away its sight momentarily and I slid from the spear before it started to swing wildly to hit me. It swung side to side, its spears sending sparks when it contacted the surrounding rocks and sent up dirt in a reversed arch. A few of the strikes nearly took my head and I rolled away. Lady luck was with me tonight when I spotted my pistol, drenched in glowing liquid a few feet away. The monster bellowed again and I watched it bump into the black hawk. It stabbed at the metal contraption with anger, assumingly, because it didn’t find me again. However, to my surprise, its bone spears sparked off the underbelly to which only angered the demon even more.

I sheathed the sword; then I picked up the XM17, wiped as much of the yellow blood as I could, and dropped the magazine. I didn’t remember if it was a fresh one or not, but I wasn’t going to take the chance. At this point, I had already become proficient enough to reload the pistol under high stress. It wasn’t godly, but it was enough not to fumble a few times trying to get it into the mag well. I racked the slide and took aim center mass. “Aim for the head! You already tried the chest, aim for the brain!” Lily called out again.

The beast was only about fifty feet away. I didn’t have a steady enough hand to land repeated shots or even just connect the first shot. “Hey, ugly!” I yelled. The beast turned almost robotically and its yellow glowing body faced me with seething rage. Its eyes weren’t completely back, but I could see the orbs festering as the blood had already stopped. “Come get some!” I yelled. It was do or die at this point considering it had super regenerative powers and I was hoping it wasn’t going Deadpool status on me.

The monster roared and charged at a visibly slower pace than earlier. It became apparent that its regenerative ability taxed its body greatly. Its body heaved under its rage as it came within thirty feet of me. Then twenty feet. Once it was got within ten feet of it, it reared up on its hind legs, and towered nearly ten feet above me; its spears cocked back to skewer me. I crouched slightly like I was about to spring forward and the monster brought down its spears with all its strength down towards where it thought I was going.

Instead of forward, I rocked backward on my feet onto my ass with my pistol jutting outward towards the monster who unwittingly brought its head closer. The distance? Two feet from the barrel of the gun. While the maneuver was the stupidest thing I could have done – it also worked… “Dasvidaniya, bitch.”

The muzzle barked with fire and lead. The monster’s head jerked with its head with each bullet that rammed itself through its cranium. Yellow blood splattered everywhere, including me. Its forehead quickly turned to mush as a palm size hole formed with bits of bone and brain beginning to fall out. It wasn’t any longer than eight seconds before the last bullet left the pistol. Silence washed over the ridge afterward and the beast only waned one last time before it crumbled like a puppet with its strings cut.

Its body fell directly on itself and twitched every now and then with its chest on its buried spears. Its pale head hung down like it awaited the gallows. I sighed with relief, but I didn’t faint like last time. I dropped the empty magazine from the smoking pistol and reached for a new one, but I found I was empty. “Really…” I was really pushing my luck. I unlocked the slid on my newly glowing pistol and slid it painfully into the holster. Not because I was in pain, but because I could hear the liquid rub around between the polymer and the metal which disgusted me.

I got up from the ground and pulled off the plate carrier. I wanted to wash badly, but I was not going to take another trip down that slope. I looked around to figure out what to do only to hear something rustle beside me. My head jerked to the monster’s body only to see it shutter and its muscles begin to contract. I could hear its breath coming back and its head slowly rising with much difficulty. “The sword!” Lily shouted again in my ear.

I quickly pulled it from its leather sheath and brought it down on the monsters neck. It was only enough to sever its spinal cord, yet, it still began to heal. So I hacked at the wound over and over again while screaming until its head fell away from its body. The body violently twitched while I quickly tapped at the screen and hit the confirmation button.

A red laser dots formed on the body’s back and a burning ball of fire broke through the night air.