Chapter 21

On a certain gloomy evening, an unwelcome guest found its way inside an apartment unit after breaking through a window, sheltering itself from the elements. The breaking sound startled Cindy and Mindy downstairs; but fortunately, it had not yet noticed the presence of its potential prey.

Cindy had developed the habit of not turning on the light at night to minimize any unwanted risk. Hence, the only thing they could do once nightfall was to sleep. Commending her discipline, she earned herself and her daughter a chance for survival.

Cindy’s peaceful expression turned stern before her daughter’s bed. Mindy also had all of her drowsiness fade away when she heard the tremor upstairs. Something had broken into their apartment building and neither of the two could sense anything even if Cindy and Mindy were awakened humans. Between all the walls of barricades and traps, nothing should have been able to make it upstairs unnoticed. It meant that the infiltrator climbed the building from outside, which wasn’t something any normal human or zombie would do.

The first thing Cindy thought in response was to call for help. Holding onto the satellite phone, Cindy prayed as she prepared her weapon.

“Come on… anyone… “

“Hello? Who is this?”

The young mother’s eye flickered, “Leo! It’s Cindy. Something got into the apartment building, I don’t know what it is. Could you send help?”

“Hang in there Ms. I will head over!”

The three women in the house were notified of the situation. In an emergency family meeting, Sarah and Sharon decided to go with Leo. However, it will take at least about an hour on foot in this heavy rain. The trio can only pray for them until they get there.

Cindy and Mindy remained quiet in the living room. There was nowhere to hide in a small apartment unit and the best they could do was to barricade the door. Cindy had been checking outside of the windows to assess the situation and planning an escape route. Listening to the sound coming from the floor above, it seemed like the creature still had not found the stairs.

The strength of the creature was unknown, but to be on the safe side, Cindy had to consider the worst. At this moment, out of the several escape routes Cindy had prepared, she had few options. Through the fire escape outside of the window leading to the ground floor and into the alley way, at the end of the alley way, she prepared a truck that can bulldoze the street for an escape. Of course, this will attract unwanted attention, but there were risks of escaping on foot as well. Another option was to head downstairs now and hide in the basement, where she prepared heavy objects that could block the metal gate. Cindy prepared a similar set up on the roof, but this one was out of the question for obvious reasons.

Cindy could hear the wreckage of barricades being destroyed. In any circumstance, staying in the apartment was probably a bad idea. With the heavy rain outside, it will probably be difficult for the creature to notice if Cindy and Mindy escaped the apartment. However, just as she decided to escape through the window, the ceiling above the living room burst and wood planks splintered, a small cut appeared on Cindy’s face. Then, something like the long neck of a reptile creature creeped down from above. At the end of the neck, an eyelid opened, revealing a dark orb that seemed to be able to suck the living soul out of any living being.

Cindy and Mindy were terrified by the stare of its eye; yet Cindy harnessed her courage and made the decision that will give her another chance of survival. She tightened her grip on the knife and dashed forward to stab the dark orb. Black liquid splashed out and a nightmarish scream was heard from the floor above. The creature’s neck drew back above the ceiling and she did not hesitate to grab Mindy and ran to the fire escape at the same time.

They ran at extraordinary speed under the elements through the alleyway. The truck was already in sight and the two made their last dash to the vehicle. From behind, a horrifying scream can once again be heard from a distance. The creature finally revealed its full form, it was an abomination with multiple limbs crawling on the walls and quickly catching up to its prey. The creature’s wounded eye had already healed; it saw its prey get in the truck and bulldozed through the street. Yet, the creature did not give up chasing; instead, it let out another cry as if it wanted revenge.

In the truck, Cindy wanted to curse her luck. Just one day after she decided to move out of the apartment, the weather delayed her plans. With such a heavy downpour, she could only push back the moving date until the rain stopped. Then this happened, she was now on the run with her daughter. Watching the creature through the rear view mirror, it was a matter of time before it could catch up. She would love to head in the direction of Leo’s home, but the circumstance will not allow her to.

The abomination landed on top of the truck, but Cindy did not fret. She had lowered the speed and wanted the creature to land precisely around this moment; on the path ahead was a truck restricted zone due to low elevation bridges. Before the creature could break into the truck, it was crushed between the steel framed structure and the top part of the truck. This bought her more time, but she could no longer proceed forward in the vehicle. She brought her daughter to hole up at a warehouse some distance away, after she cleaned up the zombies in the building, and hoped the creature would not be able to find them under the massive downpour of rain.

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The trio had arrived at the crime scene at full speed; yet, it did not change the fact that they arrived at the scene too late like the police in many movies and shows. Examining the young mother’s apartment unit, the trio concluded that the two must have escaped and something was chasing after them. It will be difficult to track down anyone in this heavy rain and they did not know about the truck Cindy had prepared.

“What is this black stuff?” Sharon pointed at the stain on the ground and pinched her nose, “It smells awful.”

“We worry about that later, now the question is how will we find Cindy and Mindy?” Leo was more concerned about the young mother and daughter.

“We have no choice, lets split up.” Sarah proposed the plan.

The plan was to split up in three directions to look for the young mother and daughter. Sharon picked east and Sarah picked west; it left Leo to head north as south was the direction of their home. A few minutes after splitting up, Leo noticed the wreckage on the street. He was not sure if this was caused by the chase after Cindy and Mindy; hence, he did not rally Sharon and Sarah back to him and decided to follow the trail alone at full speed.

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Cindy did not lock herself and her daughter behind some confined room, as the door or gate would only serve to delay the inevitable and have them trapped inside. If the creature appeared in the building, it means that it had found them.

Cindy and Mindy sat at the center of the warehouse with their drenched bodies. Only a half hour had passed, but it certainly felt like an eternity. Their worried expression changed to hopelessness when they heard the creature breaking in. Cindy quickly resolved herself, stood up and walked in the direction of the sound.

“Mindy, go! Run as far as you can.”

“No mommy!” tears were gushing out of Mindy’s small face.

As the abomination made its appearance, the mother threw her daughter several feet away towards an exit. The creature had a piece of zombie in its mouth, it was recovering itself from the earlier incident. The appearance that struck deep terror finally overtook the small child; Mindy ran through the exit at full force with tears flowing non-stop. However, after only several steps, the eyes of the little girl changed as if she was a different person. Mindy started to run back to the warehouse. Her mother was already on the ground after giving her all and traded a blow with the creature. One of the creature’s limbs was cut off and the knife was stuck in its body. Cindy received a swipe from one of its limbs and flew off to the other side.

The creature enjoyed toying with its prey. It walked towards the young mother and reached out its limbs, but it was interrupted with a stone thrown at its back. It packed quite a punch and managed to draw its attention. Seeing that Mindy stood her ground, the creature walked towards the child instead. The difference in strength was too wide and the creature did not feel threatened by the little girl. It drew out its snake-like tongue and savored Mindy’s face as the little girl stood with determination and did not move a muscle.

Just as the creature was about to take its first bite, Mindy also was about to move her weapon, but an unexpected force struck the creature from the side and sent it flying to the wall. A figure then emerged out of the shadow and lunged on the creature. Leo had finally come to the rescue! The abomination sacrificed several of its limps to get out of Leo’s deadly grasp.

Seeing the figure’s arrival, Cindy’s eyes glittered with hope, while Mindy was in shock and awe instead. Leo continued to fight the creature in a brawl; without most of its limbs, the threat of the creature dropped exponentially. The creature recognized Leo as a stronger foe and actually attempted an escape as it climbed onto the railings. The life of the abomination was extraordinarily tough, but it eventually fell to Leo’s axe before it could escape the warehouse.

Leo saw the dumbstruck Mindy was unhurt and quickly ran to Cindy on the ground to feed her some emergency health potion.

“Just some bruises, I think you will be alright,” Leo inserted the crimson jelly into her mouth.

“Thank you…,” tears were flowing out of Cindy’s eyes. Then a moment after Cindy regained strength in her body, she tightly hugged him and aggressively kissed Leo on the mouth. Cindy stuck her tongue into Leo’s mouth in a minute-long French kiss as she brushed her breast against his body.

“Sorry… I just wanted to thank you and got too excited,” her face was flushed red and almost forgot about her daughter at the back.

“Don’t worry about it,” Leo thought it felt quite nice and it wasn’t like he lost anything.

“…,” Mindy had a strange and excited look on her face.

Leo then approached the corpse of the abomination; it was unlike anything he had seen before. Even mutated beasts at the mountains still retained many of their original features from before they first evolved. Yet, for this creature, it was in none of Leo’s animal encyclopedias. He further examined the corpse, around what seemed to be a central nexus of the body, a black crystal was found inside.

Leo cleaned the eerie crystal with his sleeve and stared at the perpetual darkness within its core. In a similar fashion like the first time when he consumed the crimson jelly, his instinct told him to eat it and the boy’s body followed obediently while ignoring his brain. What followed was deep drowsiness that made him fall asleep on the spot and he began snoring.

Cindy and Mindy were left speechless. The two pairs of large droopy eyes stared at each other cluelessly before they could decide on what to do next. The best option now was to contact someone from Leo’s family, but Cindy did not even know when she had lost the satellite phone. Considering their drenched tired bodies, the weather and the time of the day, she decided to find a place to rest for the night, preferably somewhere with the shower working.