Utterly Mad

Something had gone wrong. The measures Peter had put in place to protect the collection of survivors holed up in the "Mason Banks" building had failed. The turrets that had kept at bay three attacks by bandits, had completely failed to identify and drive off or kill the thing that now harried what was left of them.

"Where's Kyle?" Mekaila asked, clutching at her cudgel defensively. She, Tylor, Carl, and a nervous businessman type who called himself "Swift" were all that remained of the towers previous group of twenty-two and three children.

"He went downstairs to try and get the generator back on. He'll be back." Explained Tylor who was busy peeking out through the door.

"No he won't." Mumbled 'Swift,' "Things got him. Thing as hungry as that. Oh god. Thing as hungry as that... Thing as..."

"What the fuck do you know?" Spat Carl. His words hardly got a response, and that was fine. It wouldn't matter when the thing found them anyway. The best they could hope for was to try and overwhelm it when it inevitably found them. Until then, tensions were high. Whatever it was, they had first seen it skirting the woods the previous morning, seeming to be on the hunt. Jacob Warner, an elderly man who'd been on watch at the time and had been the only one to see it described it as some kind of spidery thing. "Like a cross between a spider, a lizard, a rat, and a woman." He said. Carl had asked him how he knew it had been a woman and Warner had made a circular motion at his chest, and then snatched at his groin. "Pretty obvious since the thing wern't wearing no clothes or nothin.'"

Later, Carl had seen it himself. It wasn't particularly stealthy, and it seemed to be starving. He watched it tear into the leather seats of the four door sedan some of the survivors had made the trip to the tower in. Tearing into the seats with a mouth like the inside of a blender. It- she... would bite down and slough the leather from the seats in long strips, then swallow them without chewing before going in for another. Once in awhile, it devoured a lump of stuffing material as well.

Later still, it had found it's way into the tower. The first sign was an odd snuffling in the main lobby. Jessica went to go check it out, thinking that maybe one of the undead had found it's way in. When she didn't come back, Terrence went to see what was up. Likewise, he also didn't come back and so a group of three went out. This time, the tower was alerted by someone screaming, and the sound of gunfire. From there, things had gotten worse. The three floors of the Mason Banks building had become an abattoir except that in such a killing field, bodies were usually left behind. The creature seemed to leave hardly anything behind.

Now, night had fallen, and the feast didn't seem to have slowed. Warren had been hit by a glob of something offensive to the nose, and caustic as hell. The acid burned away his shirt, ate into the flesh beneath, dissolving and stopping the organs under the site of impact. Then there had been only five. Five people trapped in a room on the second floor of what had once been a loan office of some kind while some horrible man eater stalked the halls searching for them. Kyle had gone out, and now there were four.

"We can't stay here." Makaila said. She was getting tired and didn't want to be here anymore. She'd been one of the few to witness the creature first hand. It had torn into her boyfriend, clamping down on his shoulder with it's sizable maw and parting the arm from his torso in doing so. He fell back, screaming and spraying blood as the arm thus liberated was interred in the monsters sizzling guts. Makaila had struck the thing upside the head with her stick, more out of terror than aggression, and in response it had hissed and slashed. Carl had pulled her away just in time.

"No, we can't." Tylor told her, "but what are we gonna do? We can either take the jump out the window and hope to land on that box truck outside, or we can stay here and hope that it either goes away or kill it if it finds us."

"Can't kill it. Armored. Heals too fast. Too fast. Too fast." Swift mumbled. He leaned on his empty shotgun, turning a single shell over in his fingers and staring at the floor with wide open eyes. Tyler knew what he meant. Swift had escaped death at the things hands over and over again, had managed to get the thing off of him even by socking the stock against it's side and spinning it away. Tylor could see clearly Swift seating that stock against his shoulder and pulling the trigger. The explosion of the shotguns thunder, and the cloud of lead shot peppering the creature. The creatures rat like tail had been blown off and it's side had been absolutely shredded by shot, but as soon as the wounds appeared a black viscous crap had flowed out and stopped up the wounds. It screamed at them and lunged only to get ahold of swifts bag. the creature tore that to shreds while they ran from it. The way swift turned that shell over in his hands, Mekaila thought perhaps it wouldn't be long before he put it to use.

"So the jump then..." One of them said. Mekaila thought it had been Carl. "Well I-" Tylor started, but then a noise from the hall cut him off.

"SSSsssSssSsooo hong-ree. SsssSsssSooo sssSsweeeet meeeetsssS."

There was a low click, and the sound of the shotgun being worked and then the door burst inwards. By the light of the rooms single lantern, they all saw it. A horrendous monstrosity with two pairs of arms, covered in scales, chitin, hair, fur, and with a face comprised mainly of teeth and eyes and more teeth. Swift turned his shotgun on the creature, but it was too late. It wasn't going to allow that to happen again. The shotgun bellowed it's last shot into the ceiling as the monster disemboweled the businessman, then the gun was in motion. Tylor had lunged forward to try and take the opening. His knife, a simple carving number made by the fine folks in a Chicago cookery supply house, came in low and snapped off in the monsters pelvis, inches shy of the groin, before the walnut stock of the gun smashed his jaw. Tylor needn't have worried about his jaw though, the creature was already on and ripping into him with it's teeth. Mekaila turned and wrestled with the window. She'd lost her nerve.

Something hit the floor behind her, and as she finally jimmied the window open and slipped out into the open air, she realized it was Carl. She had no interest in what condition he was in, she just wanted out. The Cataclysm had taken everything from her and she would now do everything in her power to make sure it didn't take her life as well. There was a moment, very clear in her head, where she felt like she was floating. Then before the notion could really take hold, she was falling. She missed the box truck, bouncing painfully off the side and falling the rest of the distance to the asphalt. There was no time to check herself for injuries though, no time to feel pain. The woods were nearby and the monster wouldn't dare make the jump after her. She had to get up, had to-

A weight, like a bag of cement with arms and legs landed on top of her. "SsssSSsssooo hong-reee. Clevvver meeeetssssSSss, ttthiiinkiin' Myyy-kaaa not come affffteeerrr. SsssSSSSSssssooooooo hong-reeee..." Mekaila's last sight, was that of eyes filled with a profound and true hunger, and mile upon mile of serrated white teeth.

---

"Micaaaa!?" Called Lindsay. She and Damian had been looking for her for the last week. The three had only recently escaped the lab, and the mutant running off had been the one real worry they had.

"It's alright," Damian said, trying more to convince himself than he was lindsay, "She'll be fine, so long as she doesn't- There! Look!"

A figure was snuffling beside the road, occasionally snatching up some insect or other living thing to stuff into it's mouth. "Lindsay, the chicken!"

As the woman pulled the chicken out of her duffel bag, feet first, the creature looked up at them. "SssSS! Chi-kunsssSS!"

"You have to come back to the shelter with us Mica, you have to come back to the home place. Jesus, Lindsay, what happened to her?" Damian said.

"She probably ran into something big or something. Like a bear or maybe..." She said, tapering off. The words seemed hollow and insincere. Mica's handlers knew exactly what she'd gotten into. The wounds were enough to tell them everything they needed to know. Mica had run into people. Just where were those people now? They didn't have to wonder, they knew. Mica's handlers could only hope that some of them had escaped.