Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S4 Ep161: Episode 161: Post-Apocalypse Horror Stories

Episode Date: March 24, 2024

If you want to take ownership of your health, try AG1 and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 Free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. Go to www.drinkAG1.com/creepen   First up this evening we have ‘Hollow’: from an original story by Valley Rat:  http://www.creepypasta.org/creepypasta/hollow  Our second tale of post-apocalypse terror is ‘The Math Teacher’: from an original story by Adi1605:  http://www.creepypasta.org/creepypasta/the-math-teacher  Next up we have ‘Persuaded’: from an original story by GodzillaFan1:  http://www.creepypasta.org/creepypasta/persuaded Our fourth tale this evening is the anonymously written ‘Through the Woods’:  http://www.creepypasta.com/through-the-woods/ We round things off with ‘Satan’s Theater’ an original story by Wolfe of Baskervilles, kindly shared with us at Dr. Creepen’s Vault and read with the author’s permission:  https://www.reddit.com/r/DrCreepensVault/comments/7eoxu6/fiction_satans_theater_part_1/

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We believe OCT scans are so important they're included with every standard eye exam. Book an eye exam at Spexsavers.cavers.ca.caps are provided by independent optometrists. Visit Spexsavers.cavers.com to learn more. Welcome to Dr. Creepin's Dungeon. Post-apocalypse horror captivates us due to its exploration of the human psyche amidst extreme circumstances. It offers a grim yet intriguing glimpse into a world strip bear of civilization, where survival becomes the ultimate test of character. This genre delves into our deepest fears and forces us to confront existential questions about society, morality, and the essence of humanity.

By immersing ourselves in these narratives, we navigate the boundaries of our own resilience and ponder the fragility of the world we know. Now, as ever before we begin, a word of caution. Tonight's tales may contain strong language as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. That sounds like your kind of thing. And let's begin. Oh, I don't know what's worse. The screams that ended a few weeks ago, or the silence that has fallen since. since then.

Before, I felt like everything should be done to help others. Now, in my self-reflection, I just don't know anymore. It was like any other day in the city, sunny, crowded and busy. I was walking to work at a large national bank, where I recently began an internship. I remember the day well because, besides the obvious fact that the world ended on this day, I'd finally convinced myself to talk to the cute secretary across the hall from me. Things just seemed to be going my way that day. I walked to work every day, and the flow of traffic was straight my way.

That's when the alarm sounded. There was a mass panic, as is expected. I watched as thousands of people ran in hysteria, all going absolutely nowhere. Some of the people ran for the subways, anything deep in the ground. Now, there's only so many places to go, and as I stated before, people weren't getting very far. The only option I had really had was to follow all those going into the subways. There were some military personnel in the corridor, instructing us down the tunnel, wearing full military gas suits, like they were equipped for some sort of bio-air attack.

You couldn't see their faces at all, and they looked ominous. Some people were crying, and the children were screaming as their parents dragged them into the ever-darkening tunnel. It must have been a few hours that I walked. walked in darkness with crowds of people before more military personnel, dressed in similar attire as described before, signalled us to turn left into a behemoth of a vault. The characters N77 R2D80F were written across some of the steelwork. I was lucky enough to have gotten in because I heard gunshots after walking through the metal frames

and the large bronze doors were shut behind us more screams could be heard outside and more gunshots things got quiet outside after a few minutes the explosions began around 15 minutes

later The sound was deafening and the ground shook like the gods themselves were trying to kill us. The children continued to scream through it all and continued long after. The thing that disturbed me the most was the lack of noise outside. Things remained quiet in the vault for the next few days. People talked about what it was that might have happened on the outside. and the general consensus was that a nuclear explosion had detonated on the surface. It was a miracle that we were all still alive, to be honest.

There was a small cafeteria for us, but it was obviously overwhelmed by the amount of refugees here. The food rations were fairly small and seemed inhumane, though we all knew there wasn't enough to go around. It was around the third or fourth day that noises began to come from outside the vault. The soldiers were instructed by their superiors not to open the doors for any reason, and I think we were all thankful for it. None of us wanted to see what was on the other side, especially now when we heard there please. We know you're in there.

You have to let us in. Help us. We're dying out here. Do something. For the love of God, help. Their cries went on for around three hours before gunshots sounded on the other side of the door. Oh, I don't want to know who those shots came from, but we were all glad for the quiet. After a week more, the voices were back. This time, they cursed. and threatened us all on the inside. They went on to say that once they were on the inside, they'd eat our flesh and suck the marrow from our bones like a straw.

I tried not to let it get to me, but it wasn't working. The voices followed me into my dreams and caused me horrible nightmares. I dreamt I was on the outside in, the probably leveled city, being chased by sub-humans trying to eat. I know they're just dreams, but who knows if that's too far off from reality. Recently, the leaders of the vault had all agreed that our rations would be halved. There was protest and a small faction tried to take the cafeteria, but they were all shot. I've begun hoarding the food I've gotten in my bag for work.

Like I said, there's not a lot, but I stow away what I can, when I can. They're inside the vault now, and they're not human. I caught a glimpse of them as I ran through the corridors, and those things are not humans. They have horrible green, glowing eyes, and their hairless skin is yellow. I locked eyes with one of him, and in that moment I felt the hatred he, or it, felt for me. A step, two steps, and then finally a burst of rounds into his head from his left. I didn't stop to wait and greet my saviour. No, I ran. I ran as fast and as hard as I could run.

You'll probably think me a coward for what I'm about to say next, but I don't care. I arrived in the cafeteria and went straight for the kitchen. Breakfast was being served, so one of the storerooms wasn't locked up, and no one was around. I locked the giant door behind me and listened to the carnage outside my door. Some shots continued to ring throughout the next couple of hours. and then were silenced. I spent my time taking stock of what food I had, and it was enough to survive for, let's just say, a hell of a long time.

The soldier lay inside, near the door, with his rifle to his front, and his sidearm still holstered. I grabbed the sidearm and pocketed it. I've been in this room for longer than I can keep. track by the amount of can stacked against the wall. I can guess a month or so. The corpse in the room began to rot a long time ago and the stench is horrendous. It fills my nostrils day and night. The worst of it is, they know I'm here. They know I've locked myself in this room and they keep telling me I'm going to die here. I'm going to die in this room. This is the place.

They whisper to me in my sleep that they'll peel my eyelids off of my head and rip my fingers off one by one. I spend the days curled up in the corner watching the man rot, wishing my hell would end. I've thought to myself many times that I could just shoot myself in the temple and then this nightmare would go away. The food is dwindling and the idea is more and more tempting. Those hollow things call my name. In my loneliness I told them who I was. They tell me to open the door and it'll all be over. Those hollow inhuman things tell me to end it. End the torture on my own terms.

They got one thing right. Tomorrow, when I wake up, I'm ending it on my own terms. She stalked the dark hallways of the school, making sure that she made no unnecessary sounds that would attract anyone. She'd been following her math teacher for a few minutes now and was positive as she'd seen him wander into the school building.

She checked her watch. She had about an hour to the curfew. The school was deserted, as it had been for the last summer month. She was being extra cautious. She didn't want anyone seeing her follow her teacher into the school. That could only bring trouble. She followed her teacher into the dark hallways. Her teacher seemed to be wandering aimlessly, oblivious to his follower.

She waited for him to move into someplace quieter, so she could make her move. Finally, her teacher stopped in front of the bathroom, probably intrigued by the sound of rumbling pipes, and slowly made his way inside. Perfect, she muttered to herself as she reached around for her pink backpack and withdrew a bloodied, solid lead pipe from within and made her way into the bathroom. She carefully closed the bathroom door behind her

and ever so softly turned the lock. The soft clink of the lock Made her teacher turn around to face her She could see the look of confusion in the old man's eyes She followed his gaze to the lead pipe in her hands And watched as his face contorted into a hideous snarl As he lunged towards her A smile forming on her lips

She sidestepped and drove the pipe with all her might into the back of his head with a sickening thump she watched him crash into the floor soon enough a pool of dark blood formed around his head she had done this way more often than she cared to admit

as her math teacher lay on the white tiled bathroom floor twitching uncontrollably from the skull bashing he'd just received a few seconds earlier She stood over him, her feet on either side of his waist. She looked him right in the eye and said, This is for the C-minus on my last paper, and drove the pipe into his skull again, finishing him.

As she wiped blood and brains from the lead pipe, the walkie-talkie in her backpack crackled. Bulldog, this is base. watch your status over base this is bulldog the school is clear I repeat the school

is clear returning to base now over and out as she made her way out of the bathroom she glanced towards the corpse of her math teacher and muttered to herself man this zombie apocalypse is stressful

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with your first purchase. All you need to do is go to drinkag1.com slash creepen. That's drinkag1.com slash C-R-E-E-P-E-N. So join me and check it out now. It's been two weeks since this whole thing started. It all started with a tanker accident. It was all over the news.

Everyone thought it was just another oil spill. There were plenty of volunteers, plenty of people wanting to help the poor, defenseless animals. Plenty of victims. Within hours of the tanker accident, it started happening. The animals had gone crazy. They were scratching and biting the clean-up volunteers. They said it was an adverse effect of whatever was in that tanker. Rescue workers were still trying to get the crew out of the ship.

They could hear the screaming inside. There were screams to open the doors, but that's when it all went to hell, as soon as they cut the door out. There were six minutes of broadcast before it went silent. Six minutes of screaming, and agony. The ship's crew attacked the rescue workers like ravid baboons. They were breaking bones and tearing flesh. The people on the shore weren't faring any better. Those that had been

attacked by animals were attacking everyone else. It was worse than any war zone report. It was sheer brutality and yet the broadcast still went on for six minutes there were six minutes and then blank faces nobody could explain what was happening they tried to continue with the regular news the economy the weather and acute human interest story but they couldn't make us unsee what we'd see I tried to continue with my regular existence. But every time I switched on the news or walked by a newsstand, it was there, this big mystery. They had some explanations.

Oh, it was an infection, or maybe brain parasites. But it didn't matter. It wasn't the infection we were afraid of. It was them. Four days after the initial report, the state of emergency was raised. And yet, we've all seen this before.

It's in every zombie movie ever. People didn't know who to trust. People were stockpiling food and weapons. Some tried to flee. But it seems every zombie movie was right. They didn't make it. Three days later, they arrived in my town. I expected moans, shuffling corpses and dismemberment.

But that's where the movies lied. They ran through the streets, screaming. I remember running to my front door as fast as I could, blocking, barricading, and doing anything to. make sure it would stay shut and then I headed for the window. I was on the second story and I could see the carnage. They were unstoppable. They were aware. A group of them made their way through a building across the street. They jumped straight through, played glass windows. the shards slicing through them made no difference. They just kept coming. My barricade

wasn't going to hold. I rushed around my flat, grabbing supplies and jamming them into the most secure room of the apartment. I went back for one last look across the street, and I wish, in a second-story window, my face met one of theirs. They knew where I was. They knew where I was. I quickly dashed into the room and locked the door. I didn't have any kind of panic room or a secure basement, so the safest place I could think of was my bathroom. There were no windows and only one door. It had a lock.

I filled my sink and bath-thop full of water so I could stay for a while. I sat there in the dark room with the distant screen. in my ears. I began to feel like I may have overreacted. It had been two hours with no sign of them. It actually got quieter and I thought maybe they'd moved on. Maybe I could leave the room and get to the kitchen. I could grab some more food to wait it out. Then a crash came through the front door. There was a sound of someone running full force into the door and knocking down the barrier behind it. There were a couple more crashes before I knew they were inside. There were rapid footsteps moving around the flat, a couple of screams and then a bang on the wall beside me.

My eyes were open to their widest, even in the pitch-black darkness of the room. There was another bang and then another. They knew I was there and they knew I was scared. This was the zombie nightmare I'd been expecting from the start. I had nowhere to run. There was only so much time before they would break in. I sat with my back to the door, hoping my extra weight would make it harder for them to get. in. Then it got worse. Why don't you open the door? There was a voice on the opposite side of the

door. There were no screams or moans, just a quiet, whispery voice. And then, more of them. We've come for you. You'll be happier if you open the door. It's not so bad. The whispery voices became a cacophony of noise trying to persuade me. To break me, to fool me. I'd heard that the moaning of zombies would drive people insane. But this was worse. A siren call.

I sat in the darkness and hoped and prayed that they'd get bored. But they don't get bored. and they don't leave. I managed to use the mirror to peek under the door, only to be greeted by horrible, unblinking eyes, blood-smeared faces, screams, and more horrible whispers. That was two days ago.

I don't know what to do anymore. Maybe. It won't be so bad. left. They're coming for me and it's only a matter of time before they find me. I'm sitting here in this abandoned shack I found in the woods, using only the shafts of moonlight that's coming through the broken windows to write this. I know that this will be the last chance I get to warn anyone, to tell them to find safety and hide. Hide. I never thought in a thousand years that I would ever think to use this word for myself. I can barely write this. My hands are shaking so violently.

The blood off of my fingers is staining the paper as I try to write. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry that it has come to this, but I have to hide like some kind of animal. They're all dead. My friends, my comrades. Jess was the first to go down They caught her as we were leaving the old mill back in town I don't know how they found out that we were staying there But they did We were packing Taking as much as each of us could carry on our backs

We heard them break through the front doors of the mill Their booted steps echoing through the empty building As they ran looking for us. We grabbed what we had and ran for the roof, but Jess forgot something, a locket or some shit. I told her to leave it.

We'd come back for it later, but she couldn't leave it. Jess had told me once that the locket was a gift from another life, from a time she would never forget. A lover lost a wall. I wasn't surprised that she wouldn't leave it, but I still tried to beg her to come with us that it wasn't worth it

The others tried to tell her as well But they were the ones who told me To leave her They're the ones who told me that we needed to run It had just started to rain as we went across the roof We could barely hear those first gunshots Over the low rumble of thunder above us The first screams still echoing

my ears. I can hear them as if they were still around me. The screams made my skin crawl, the air filling with the sounds of death. And then, silence. The four of us were scaling down the ladders when the silence filled our ears. A deafening sound. We all stopped. We shouldn't have stopped, but we did. Luke was on the ground. already. He was always the fastest out of the five of us. He was looking up of the roof, just as we were. Zach was beneath me on the ladder. Abby was above me, frozen as she waited. I should have known she'd have called to the roof for Jess. She should never have called out after her. He might have gotten away if she hadn't. It was only seconds after Abby had called out that we saw the black figure.

to look over the edge of the roof. And I know my eyes went wide, just like the others. That black menacing figure. I'd heard so many tales of black dogs being omens, or black cats, ravens and crows. But I had never felt as afraid as I had right then when I was staring up at the faceless black figure that stared at back at us. It was Zach that finally broke the silence. He yelled for us to jump and run. We were still halfway up the building on the ladders, and looking down, I remember seeing Luke shouting up at us. I couldn't hear what he was yelling. The gunshots were too loud around

us. I didn't get a chance to jump. Zach grabbed my ankle and tugged me hard, forcing me to release the prongs of the ladder. Abby had already jumped off to the side of where she'd been, hurling herself to the ground below. She'd always been able to make these kind of jumps with such precision and beauty. She'd been a dancer once, a long time ago. She landed almost naturally on the ground below, rolling a few feet before standing up and grabbing at Luke, trying to pull him with her, telling him we'd catch up. I felt the ground before I saw it. my body bounced against the hard cement and I felt my knees and palms scrape against its rough surface Zach though was there with me grabbing me up and pulling me to my feet

Luke was around us trying to get us to move it was all happening so fast I remember briefly looking back at the mill's roof and seeing eight black figures now all of them shooting towards us. But we were faster than they were anticipating. We weren't Jess. We weren't reckless and rushing in blindly like she had. The next thing I knew, the four of us were running down the alley between the old general store and the florist. Zach brought me here once.

It was one of the only places in this small town that sold our favorite brand of drink. It had been back when I'd first met him after I'd wandered into the town. I remember that day like it was yesterday. His dark hair and those violet coloured eyes. He was dashing and polite, but so mysterious. I'd been so thirsty from wandering through the woods that surrounded the town. So... I still don't know how the four of us managed to get away from the mill,

but we knew that it hadn't been. without sacrifice. None of us talked about Jess. None of us questioned if she'd catch up or where she could be. It was like all four of us knew the answer without asking it aloud. I knew there was no way she'd gotten out of there alive. They'd killed her, just like they'd kill us if they caught us. Luke was the first one to speak as we ran across Main Street, leading us into the old movie theater. He said what we all knew. We had to leave, to run as fast as we could and get out of there. He told us of a sanctuary, a place where we'd be all safe. St. Louis. I'd never been there before, but I knew that it was at least an hour and a half away.

from our little town of Herman. Zach asked him how we'd possibly make it there, and Luke just told him we'd figure it out. I almost felt as if maybe Luke knew what was to come, but was just too afraid to tell us. Abby was already checking the theatre, making sure that we were safe, at least for a few moments.

She was the quietest of us all, so she always was the first of volunteer to go scout around. if we needed it. When she came back though, none of us were ready for the look on her face. She had no colour on her face, which was saying something due to how light tone she already was. She told us we couldn't stay here, but of course, when Luke asked her why, and she wouldn't answer. He pushed her out of the way and walked into theatre number one. I shouldn't have followed. I should have listened to Zach when he told me to stay with Abby.

My hand shot to my face immediately after walking into the dark room. I covered my mouth and my nose. The smell of blood was so overwhelming that it made my stomach lurch and turn. At least 15 people, all of them dead. There were bullet casings covering the floors, and the bodies were just thrown across the chest. and in the aisles. Zach told me later that this was where they'd lured everyone at first,

that this was how they got so many of us down so quickly. I still didn't understand what was going on, though, but I was too afraid to ask. Abby came running into the theatre room shortly after, telling us we had to leave right then. We didn't ask questions. We didn't need to. Zach ran to the back of the theatre, back past the screen and pushed open the door to the back alley.

We ran. We had to. We left our temporary hiding place and ran back out into the rain that was now pouring down from the sky, like buckets that were being dumped down on top of us. We had to run for the forest, to where we had constant cover and safety. But that was at least eight blocks away in either direction. direction. We were almost in the centre of town. Luke thought we should head towards where the bus station was, back on the east side of town. It made the most sense because St. Louis was east of here. But Zach thought it would be too obvious, that they'd probably be waiting for us and that the roads most likely had roadblocks by now. But it was Abby who thought much differently. She'd been so quiet this entire time. But finally, she'd been so quiet this entire time. But finally, she'd She said we needed to go back for Jess. Zach just looked at her.

Luke bluntly said no. Abby, though, wasn't going to settle for that answer. She started to cry. Or maybe that was just rain dripping down her face. She asked, what if Jess was still alive or hurt and needed help? The three of us knew that we couldn't go back, regardless of whether she was alive or not. but Abby didn't want to hear it.

I begged her to stop getting louder, but soon she was shouting at us, calling us monsters, telling us that this was all our fault. Abby said she was going back by herself, but she was going to get Jess. She kept backing up, and we were trying to get her to stay,

to calm down and think about this. But just as she stepped back to where the side-out, of the theatre was her head jerked to the right an explosion of blood spraying from the left side of her head she made a sick groaning sound as if trying to talk and then just dropped to the ground i know that i screamed even though i shouldn't have because zach grabbed my arm and pulled me to him and loop began to run the opposite way down the alley east it was I was in shock I hadn't even heard the gunshot before she fell to the ground Abby and Jess were the second people I'd met when I'd come here they were in the general store buying the same brand of drinks that Zach was buying for me they were

beautiful girls and best friends they'd been friends since before they could remember and they were nearly inseparable In fact, over the past numerous years, I can only recall a handful of times, and they'd been away from one another. Jess had been in love with Luke, but Luke liked Abby. Unfortunately, Abby had never gotten over her lost love. We ran down that alley as fast as we could. We didn't even look behind us.

We'd turn down this alley, and then that, swerving in and out of buildings, during the best we could, to avoid the main streets. We didn't see another soul until we got to where the bus station was. Herman's station was small, nothing big and glamorous, just a small outdoor station with kiosk where they sold the tickets.

It was quiet there. Luke had expected to find at least a bus or two since there were normally a couple that were kept here for backup or emergencies, but they were long gone. Apparently they'd been evacuating for a day or two before now. Quietly. It was like they knew who they did and didn't want to save.

We would have to run from here. Make our way to St. Louis by foot. Luke even grabbed a map from a nearby kiosk, just so we knew where we were going and where to avoid. He'd made the trip to St. Louis numerous times, but this would be the first time any of us had walked there. We let our guard down, though. We'd finally thought we were free,

that we had our way out and that we were going to get out of there. We've started walking towards the tree line to the woods, and we didn't bother checking behind us. We were stupid. Luke heard them first, those heavy combat-grade boots slamming against the congeness. as they ran. He told us to run, told Zach to keep me safe. They had their guns up and firing before I even knew what was going on. I heard the bullets ricocheting from around us as Zach pulled

me by my hand towards the trees. I didn't dare look back at Luke. I could hear the screams again, just like before at the mill. People were dying. Luke. was dying. While we were running, I asked Zach what was going on, why this was happening. I thought we had government immunity, that we were safe, that we could live. Zach told me that the immunity was over, that the newest president had thrown out the agreements and had deemed us all a threat to the nation. He called us monsters. He said we had no reason to here anymore. Zach told me that we were no longer safe. He said that all we could do was get to St. Louis, where the safe house had been built just in case anything like this had ever happened.

From that point to now, sitting in this shack, it's all still a blur. We'd run for quite a while, then just started walking east. It had started to get dark when the sound of helicopters could be heard in the distance. Zach told me not to worry about it, to just keep moving, that I had this overwhelming feeling of dread building up inside of me. We were in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea where we were, or which way to go. Zach was leading me every step of the way, and I trusted him, just as I always had since the day I'd met him. He was my savior and my protector. He'd recognize me the moment I dented Herman.

He knew that I was someone who would need to be protected. He took me under his wing and did just that. He introduced me to his friends, took me to the mill, showed me what it was like to trust and have friends again. Even now, when his life was on the line, when he knew that if he left me behind, he could say, save himself. He still protected me. He taught me so much over the past numerous years. I didn't know what I would ever do without him. I'd relied on him so much that now I didn't even want to think

about what would happen if we were separated. But we were separated. After hearing those helicopters in the distance, we heard the dogs, then the peace. The men were loud as they hunted us through the woods, obviously not trying to hide the fact that they were close. It was like a game of cat and mouse to them. The hunters had become the hunted. When they were starting to surround us, Zach hid me in some brush and told me to find the first opening and make a run for it. I didn't want to.

I wanted to stay right there and die with him. I stayed long enough to see this start at the fight. They kicked him and punched him, and he took every hit, even though I knew he could have fought back. He was stalling them. He was saving me. It took every fibre of my being to not call out for him, to scream his name as I watched them taunt him and then stab him. They laughed at him, called him names and dared him to fight back like the others. But he didn't. He just looked towards where he'd hidden me and closed his eyes. I still don't know how I got out of there, or even when. I just know that I ran the moment

they shot that first bullet. I ran for what felt like hours. I ran until my chest burned and my body ached. I ran as fast as I possibly could, putting as much distance as I could between me and them. Now I'm here, hiding. I can hear the helicopters now, far off in the distance. I could try to run for it, but I don't know where I'd go. I am going to fight. I have to

It's in my nature I've already drunk my last bottle of fangs And I remember that first bottle Zach ever gave to me The government had created this for us To sate our hunger so that we didn't need to feed So we could live with everyone else We worked

We loved We laughed We did just as everyone else We made names for ourselves and became citizens. We didn't need to train to hunt. We didn't need to fight. We grew weak and civilized. We were no longer monsters.

We weren't vampires. We were just us. But that's gone now. Abby, Jess, Luke, Zach. They're all gone now. Fang's is gone. Hey Ontario, come on down to BetMGM casino and check out our newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. Don't miss out.

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BenMGEM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. We are once again the monsters, the creatures of the darkness. I can hear the dogs now. See the artificial rays from their flashlights and spotlights through the broken windows. The humans have declared war. They intend to eradicate and remove every last one of us. This is war and I will stand and fight. One Colt AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle.

Two banana design magazines, each packed with 30 rounds of 5-56mm-nater-nater-nature NATO ammunition. NATO ammunition. One semi-depleted box of backup munitions containing an additional 30 rounds plus change. One G29 G-29 Glock safe action pistol. One box magazine holding 179mm parabillam rounds. One full box of backup munitions containing an additional 100 rounds. One Bolo style, military-grade machete, relatively sharp. one neutral-colored rain poncho

two canisters of CS tear gas one flashbang grenade one empty military gray canteen green in color one thermal blanket one multi-pocket military backpack of ermid camouflage coloring to hold it all mulling over her inventory in precise detail

Krista attempted to commit everything to memory something she prided herself on for being born a line edict. She squatted in the same house she had first come to after lost hills had fallen, the same one with stains coating the carpets and broken windows, and smelled of a malodorous amalgamation of roadkill and fire smoke. It was a single house, astrayed from the rest in the neighbourhood of the Canyon Road. The road it sat on led up to a steep incline,

into a higher-scale collection of art deco houses, bordering the very edge of the suburbs. At their backyards there was chaparral and a myriad hills before one would reach the isolated asylum she had extricated herself from. Trees grew more scarcely in this area and often appeared dead, or at least in slumber.

Though her endeavours in searching the first couple upscale houses yielded no fruit, it was fortuitous she found some semblance of shelter from the wind and rain. It appeared as though the newer houses had been prime targets for looting, yet the miscreants had overlooked the sequestered abode she had come across. It was built almost like a log cabin, although more extensive in the amount of rooms it contained. The insulation felt relatively modern, and she had done her best to hammer various building materials

over the shattered windows, most of which was scavenged from the shed in the backyard. The wind and cold still crept through the cracks, despite her best efforts. Her sweater and pants offered meagre protection from the bitter chills, even if she put the poncho on. She sat huddled in her thermal blanket, the crinkles evident even with the tiniest nuances in movement. But the aluminum foil-looking thing had kept her alive for the past few days, so she couldn't complain.

The dim room allowed only a few cracks of the pale light from outside to seep in and illuminate the small infantry she had neatly arranged in front of herself. Her canteen was empty, as she'd earlier gleaned. Whomever had occupied the house before her, they had left paltry supplies behind. She'd found a bag of brown rice in the pantry, something she had crunched on for sustenance. other than that there was a box of vegetable broth half used in the otherwise emptied fridge

she'd smelt it and taken a sip it was old but not spoiled she figured the chilly weather had been sufficient to keep it from expiring through her meals of vegetable broth soaked rice her belly had growled with an animalistic further as her throat remained dry she figured the salt in the broth wasn't helping her dehydration

but the house offered little recourse for such an issue. She had searched high and low for any kind of water purifier, even willing to tempt her fate with a charcoal pitcher if she could seek one out, but to no purchase. Every upscale house above held no boons to aid her, and she felt she had covered more than half the neighbourhood. Furniture, paintings, showers she couldn't use. She hated what the water had become, the antithesis of what it had once been, life.

The gas was out in this portion of the city. She'd seen an enormous crater in the centre of the neighbourhood above, fractured piping and burn marks making the reasons evident. She had no matches, no lighter, nothing so much as flint and steel. Try as she had, lighting of fire seemed impossible. She could not boil water. even as it run in superfluity from every faucet. Sometimes she stood in front of a faucet, turned on,

staring down with hollow eyes and a pallid expression befitting her scenario. She would have to move on today. All the rice was gone, and she was slowly dying of thirst. Even if further into the suburbs, and closer to the city, was more dangerous, so be it. She had the means of defending herself. She mostly worried of encounters with Alphus or the other humans left over. The changed she would deal with and get by as she needed.

Krista stood and stretched, allowing the blanket to fall from her back. Perhaps if she were lucky, she would come across her sister. She grinned wryly. Oh, my dear dim-witted crystal, where art thou? Her stomach loudly growled in response. Dear stomach, I have received your numerous transmissions, and am in agreement. I too am completely starving. Please stop spamming my brain with your signals.

Thank you, she muttered. Her deep blue eyes glazed languidly over her gear, and she knelt down, beginning to pack it all back inside. Once everything was ready, she slung the roll. rifle over her back and holstered the pistol. In one hand she carried the Bolo machete. She used the other to pull the hood of the poncho over her dark bangs and pushed the front door open. Into the cold, sprinkling weather she forayed, exiting the property and continuing down the canyon road until she finally reached the first intersection of the main suburbs. Even after only a mile of walking, her legs already felt weak.

She groaned at the shaky feeling, scanning the surroundings of her first path of houses. Decrepit, ransacked, abandoned. She gleaned changed, roaming aimlessly along the road further down, and grunted, knowing she would have to go that way in order to reach the various outlying plazes of convenient stores and pharmacies. She convinced herself to search the houses for leftovers, but she knew her calories. were burning fast. She needed better chances of rewards, and she had no clue if the houses had been truly abandoned by their owners or not. The last thing that would help her appetite and thirst would be a double-barrelled shotgun aimed at her head. Public property was always a safer bet in her experiences. She gave the bolo a few practice swings, and felt her arms beginning

to tire out. The muscle fatigue was alarming, but not. Not wholly surprising. She elected to holster the machete in its sleeve and draw her rifle. She adjusted the iron sights and knelt down, stealing herself to fire. With a loud pop, the first shot detonated, illuminating all the space around her as the clattering of the brass shell casing resounded along the asphalt. The first shot, although her aim felt shaky due to hunger, landed a headshot in the nearest changed. The others, seeing the flash, put a spotlight to their potential meal,

began to turn and stumble towards her. Krista stood and sauntered towards each, wishing she had the strength to trust herself with the sheathed melee weapon. It was a waste to use ammunition at such close range. As each came close, she fired a single time into their head, and was rewarded with identical results in each trigger pull. One by one, they fell. She silenced over a dozen before their groans finally succumbed to silence,

and she lowered her rifle, smiling. Such fodder, she taunted a body, tapping it with the end of her shoe, as the hole in its head spilled black blood into a large, swelling pool beneath the pile. Stepping around the pile, she nonchalantly unloaded her magazine and rolled her backpack around to the side of her body, using her offhand to place the ejected cartridge into a side net. She opened the pack, letting the rifle fall by its sling to her side.

She rummaged until she found the box of long rifle rounds and began popping them out one by one. She worked as she walked, not fully paying attention of whatever lie ahead. Pulling the action on the rifle back, she chambered an extra round and moved the bolt back into the firing position. Then she began to fill her magazine back up until it would take no more bullets. Once she zipped the backpack up and reloaded the magazine, she gassed in surprise, halting in her tracks as she almost tripped over the charred bumper of a car. She looked beyond and noticed the rest of the vehicle was nearby.

It was a vacant, burned-out shell, hardly recognisable, save for the fact it was once a minivan. Her eyes scanned around the van, and she quickly realized she'd come across a large parking lot, one the road had turned into. Crystal looked behind herself, seeing she had veered off the main road. The parking lot belonged to that of a large mall, she surmised, gazing across the parking lot positively filled with charred and twisted metal. She cocked an eyebrow, wondering what could have happened to cause every single abandoned car to have been cast ablaze. As she cautiously trudged through an asphalt aisle, keeping an eye for any change lurking in between the scary little wrecks, she kept looking ahead to the mall itself. It appeared derelict as she expected.

The lower windows boarded and caged off to the public. But what really piqued her interest were the many messages scrawled in graffiti along the entire bottom. The whole scene felt vaguely uncanny to her. She was curious why a place that must have held host to so many people the society was falling could now be deserted. Nothing so much as a corpse seemed to decorate the other morbid and ubiquitous remains. The cars.

So many. all the same, burnt, melted, deformed. As she grew closer to the frontal walls, she can make out the various messages upon the walls. She'd expected gang nonsense or phallic imagery, but she was startled by the rather poignant and even foreboding notes others before her had left. Leaving this world is not as scary as it seems.

Do not enter. cursed. Even the chain shall not tread here. You've gone too far. I'll have more fun in hell. And finally, God doesn't watch inside here. Different colors, different graffiti styles, different messages. She examined each closely, the silence, all consuming in total, exacerbating her back. case of nerves. Peering high up, she gazed upon the whitewashed sign, reading the name of the mall. Cold pine moor. Before the end, she had scarcely strayed towards this side of town. Her family had resided in the more upscale areas in the eastern suburbs, further from the city. Despite the sedient nature of her surroundings, she was impressed by the sheer size of the super-center.

Krista looked left and right, searching for a way inside. She chalked the messages up to people scaring others away before they could intrude. She made sure her rifle was ready to encounter any hoodlums within. The underbarrel flashlight attachment functioned well, and she had no reservations of trespassing if it meant the potential for food. It seemed she had overlooked a colloquial entrance of sorts. A dark patch of the interior peeking out from behind a board that seemed to have been torn off based on the nails lying around the panel of what she assumed had been a window.

Then someone had propped it back up as though to hide inside. Krista sharply exhaled and turned on her flashlight, peering inside the broken window. Inside she gleaned what looked to be a clothing department. She noticed the silhouettes of stationary mannequins within, still donning their respective apparel and staring into empty space with lifeless, glazed eyes. Besides the clothing strewn about the ground on occasion, and the rare overturned mannequin,

she was pleasantly surprised to see the store had been largely untouched. It seemed as though everyone had left in a hurry, and ever since then, nothing had entered the dusted palace. Krista pushed the border side and shimmied her way inside, prudently scanning the area for any changed or ambushes. Every silhouette in her periphery remained still as she searched the first room, making sure they all really were mannequins. Satisfied that she was alone, Krista began to venture further into the very dark department store, the smells of old cloth and mothballs, wafting it. through her nostrils softly, as her footsteps echoed against the far walls. In the abject silence, it seemed every noise she made proceeded with great headway, disappearing into the darkness.

Though the first location had been empty, Krista remained on her toes, knowing people could be further inside, but she also knew she would have the jump on them. If there were others within, she would see whatever light they had before they saw hers. She cupped her hand over her torch, just enough to allow a small sliver of her LED to pierce through, just enough to see where she was going. She was intrigued by just how dark it was inside, even though it was the middle of daytime outside,

even if there were clouds. The pale light still should have cast more within the place than she was noticing. Krista exited the clothing department and the central hallway, where all storefronts pervade their names and various inviting odors to all passers-by. At least, they had. Now the silent ruin was only a morbid reminder of what society had been, peering left and right. She was mildly surprised by the fact that the entire place appeared pitch black. No barrel fires to ward off the cold. no residual lighting from any storefronts revived potentially by generators and no other flashlights.

There was nothing but silence and darkness. She sighed gently, collecting herself and resolved to find a directory, hoping to find her way to the food court. If she was lucky, she would find something left over in the back of an eatery, some non-perishable item that could bolster her beyond the poultry meal she had consumed in the past few days. Feeling more comfortable without the presence of any other lights, she pulled her hand away from her own light, and instead repurposed it to hold firm to the foregrip. It was more than obvious that no electricity ran through the mall anymore.

Of course, she'd expected as much, but again she felt a nagging thought resurface at the back of her head, stirring her nerves a bit. The sheer darkness. Even the skylights above, as many moors had, seemed to let no light inside. She pointed her own light briefly upwards, squinting to make out what the cause of this was.

As she observed, the stark realisation came across her, almost making her shiver. Through the translucent white glass, Christ could very well make out the blurry edges of wood slats, the dark knots of wood grains showing through more than the lighter brown surfaces they resided within. Someone, for a reason she could not possibly desert, had gone to the efforts of covering the natural light sources along the rooftop.

As far as she could see, it appeared all of them had been obscured. She breathed more heavily, feeling somewhat dizzy as she looked back down. She felt darkness creeped the edges of her periphery and quickly retreat once she had levelled her vision again. She shook her head briefly and used her offhand to pull the hood of her poncho down to accentuate her vision.

Her mind raced to reach a conclusion as to why someone would do such a thing to the roof. Humans desired light. There were no nocturnal predators no creatures holding host of luminescent parts. If the darkness was so immensely swallowing, so totally engulfing in the daytime, she was loath to imagine that it could get worse at night time.

So, no one in their right mind would go to such levels of effort to maintain such odd conditions, conditions that belied the need for her own kind to see. To know what lies in the unlawed. known parts. And only a person could have done such a thing. Of course, the change were far too parochial to perform anything than their rote tasks of eating and walking. Alphas were different, but still not so coordinated. She elected not to imagine what would drive a person or people to commit such eccentric and counterintuitive acts. Be as it may, however, the happenstance

withheld a boon. So long as it meant no one could be in the mall with her, she would feel fine. No matter someone's insanity, physical restrictions would always place above a zone of plausible deniability. A man with schizophrenia would not be able to climb walls like a spider, and so on and so on. A person so deluded is to cover an entire mall with darkness, would not be able to see through the darkness any more than she. As she walked through the dark hallway, the silence pressing from both sides like thick, suffocating blankets,

she idly reminisced of the lessons her father had taught her and her sister. Those old, esoteric lessons that only someone as eccentric as him would bring to light. He had shown them scary movies of young ages. Ages many were judge inappropriate

for such violent, blood-soaked cinema. However, having worked in the movie's industry as a prompt designer, he had a better grasp on these bloody moments than most. He would pause during a scene where someone had been decapitated and played the movie frame by frame to illuminate where exactly the jump-cutter occurred, where the actor had been swapped with a dummy. He edified them on what squibs were, and how they could be remotely detonated to simulate explosions of blood and gunfire peppering walls. He described how computer generation was able to portray realistic scenarios on grander scales, to save on practical effect budgeting. Camera pannings of massacred civilians and

soldiers in war movies and such. At greater distances, they'd learned, the resemblance between humans and their 3D dummy counterparts were uncanny. He described how the intestines spilling from underneath shirts were frequently made of marshmallows wrapped in latex, painted red and brown. The many wonders of what liquid latex and cotton could create in the department of rotten and charred flesh. Krista and her sister had initially been bothered by his lessons, but both girls had grown accustomed to them as time passed. She knew her sister had grown excited by them, and, admittedly, she had begun to enjoy them too. The lessons were endearing, allowing the girls to have a much more adept understanding of the fine line between reality and media.

She remembered her father telling them of his reasons, how important these lessons were to teach at such a young age, to imprint the brain wiring, as it were. As a result, she and her sister were seldom scared by books, movies, or even attractions at fairs and amusement parks around Halloween. It had all been so terribly boring, but also wonderfully empowering. Seeing others cower in fear as she and her sister could stand back

and mentally note what caused the particular gory scene to occur practically. But, even if this was the case, there were still fears they were born with, seemingly. For her sister, Crystal, hated spiders. She always had, and always would. She never had any nasty run-in with the beasts as a child. Nor had she gone through a traumatising scene. situation regarding the creatures. It seemed as though it was a spontaneous quality genetically

inherited. Krista, on the other hand, had a more relevant fear. Something backed with a morbid potency that she could never seem to shake off, no matter how she tried to condition herself. Skeletons. Grisly, charred. Clean. It didn't seem to matter. The mere sight of them had caused some intrinsic revulsion she had no control over, akin to a deep, primal fear such as falling or loud noises. Human skeletons in particular. She could attribute that to her childhood, unlike Crystal. Their father had been showcasing a horror about piranhas to them,

and there had been one scene in particular that had deeply unsettled her against her willpower. There'd been a set-up of a shot displaying the flow of a freshwater river. A black jungle cow had been forced to ford the river and had nearly submerged everything but at the very top of its head as to allow its nostrils to breathe. Pallet had been grainy and dark, the cinematography telling of some terrible, impending travesty. The cow had begun moaning and mooing loudly,

a myriad bubbles rising up from around it on all sides as the murky water quickly turned red. The terrible bleats of the creature sounded tortured, in the utmost agony. She had been shocked when it had emerged on the other side, scant amounts of muscles and nerves attached to the skeleton as the remains of the chewed guts spilled from what had been its belly. The coward staggered lamely across the ground for several feet.

The terrible silver fish flopping and still chewing at whatever remained on its skeleton, certainized still living body. The sheer amount of blood was harrowing enough, but what truly unsettled her was the fact that the poor creature's head appeared perfectly intact, whilst nearly everything below was completely decimated. It had collapsed to the ground pathetically, and breathed heavily for several more seconds,

before its still beating heart was torn into by a fish, and it quickly bled out as the thoracic cavity was breached. Her sister had also thought the scene particularly unsettling, but their father had paused and explained to them the magic of blue-screen effects, in combination with a well-trained cow that had waded, in truth, across a river in Ohio and not the Amazon. Crystal had been awed by how realistic it had looked, and was interested in keeping watching. Krista had hid her utter shock beneath a small smile, nodding at her father's information. She didn't dare tell them, and appear looking weaker than her sister.

Further down the line, a man had been climbing across a vine, and Krista had been watching, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, cold sweat trickling down the nape of her young neck, as she watched in anticipatory horror, until the first of her. The man fell in as the ominous music reschendowed. She'd squeezed her eyes shut, not looking as his horrified screams came to par with the cows. After the cries had ceased, she'd peeked out, just in time to see his gristle-culted skull float to the riverbank, an eyeball hanging out and the jaw agape in silent horror. Crystal had heard her dad chuckling at the scene and had actually joined in at just how over the top it had been played out

just to be sure her father had been certain to show them the behind-the-scenes features in the movie menu to add more than his own insight into the production process Krista absently stared at the ground as her sister and father had watched with intrigue seeing the special effects used in the river scenes She'd looked up, a faraway gaze in her eyes, to see the actor had been devoured standing outside the river, covered in fake blood and wrapped in a blanket as he grinned widely into the camera. A producer had him hold up his skull, as she explained how they had created the prop. The director commented on nonchalant things, like how the river had been cold,

and the actors and actresses who had entered usually needed hot showers afterwards. She hadn't been listening. Those horrible moments kept playing in her head on loops. As her dad and sister kept watching the behind-the-scenes footage, she had subconsciously curled into a ball onto the couch, feeling terrified even though her father sat directly next to her and her sister next to him. Nightmares came for years afterwards,

though she never dared relent until her parents what they were about, no matter how many times they had run into her screaming. She remembered always looking across the room to her soundly sleeping sister, a hateful envy bubbling just beneath the surface of how easily she had shaken the movie away. Every movie their father had showed them after that, she remained indefinitely apprehensive of a monster eating someone, leaving only the bones behind in disgustingly quick fashion.

A person falling into a vat of acid to have their remains float to the top, a fiery explosion searing the flesh off those caught in it in borderline cartoonish manners. Of course, her father had explained everything away and remained none the wiser to Christa's plight, nor did her sister or her mother. No one ever knew, because she never told them. No matter how much he had explained to her how fake it had all been, she couldn't shake the animal fear that they pierced her with, because she knew skeletons were real. She avoided touching her eye socket edges, or even her teeth. The bump on the side of her wrist made her nauseous whenever she looked at it. She tried her best to avoid even looking at people's kneecaps.

Even today, that deep, repressed fear lingered in dark places. She'd only ever told her therapist. One she claimed to see for unrelated reasons to her family, for which they fully supported her. She only told him because she knew he could tell no one else her disclosures by law. I couldn't hurt you, had always been the caveat of his sessions. Skeletons are natural part of us, like muscles and blood and morgans. None of those bother you, right? They didn't, but his rationalizations had never truly helped her. She continued, her low, careful steps, of which still echoed in the abject silence.

Her directory had pointed her to the north side in order to reach the food court, so that's where she went. She at last reached a large, almost cavernous rotunda, filled to the brim with overturned tables and chairs. Surrounding the centre were a variety of eateries, long since deserted and coated with a fine layer of dust. The first she approached was a Mexican food restaurant.

The sign once neon and yellow, as she ran her flashlight over the cheerful cartoon boy, wearing a sombrero and holding a burrito. She mantled the counter and slowly worked her way inside, moving her LED over the various equipment near the back used to prepare the food. a deep friar or tortilla press, a griddle. She pressed into the back, making her way past the kitchen until she reached the metal door of what she presumed to be food storage.

She opened the creaking door slowly, wincing as she heard even the modest noise reverberate throughout the food centre. Peaking inside, with the barrel of her gun and the flashlight, she smiled upon seeing the metal racks of the pantry. On the shelves resided a few cans of pinto beans, black beans, stale taco shells, moldy tortillas, cans of enchilada sauce and various canned vegetables. Should have brought a bigger pack, she muttered to herself, although not allowing the elation of finding food to be lost on her empty stomach. With little thought, she tore open a package of the taco shells and quickly began to crunch loudly upon them, savoring the hard, borderline tasteless food more than anything.

Although difficult to consume, she'd no doubt the meal would satisfy for a time and possibly bolster her weak muscles until she found a way to properly open the cans. Krista searched high and low for a can open, yet to no purchase. Tentatively, she extracted her bolo machete and gazed upon it wistfully, wondering if she would waste more food in trying to open the cans than she would procure. As she continued to devour the stale shells, she began to fill her backpack to its brim, loading it heavily down with beans, vegetables, and even a large can of enchilada sauce, before she zipped it back up and sighed contentedly.

Her luck appeared in her favour, it seemed. At her first try, she'd already found enough food to feed her for a week, if she rationed. She would make it a point to camp nearby and keep salvaging non-perishables from the other retries, still surrounding her and untouched by others. She chuckled to herself as she climbed over the counter once again and dusted herself off as she began to make headway back with her pregnant backpack. Though a pack was heavy, she found solace in the shell she continued munching on, still catching the flavors of grease and salt, did the pack despite the expired nature of the taco constituents.

She remembered she'd passed a camping store not too far back. Perhaps if she was lucky, she could find a propane stove and cook her meals to warm her cold insides. She could spend the night in a tent and set up propane lanterns to illuminate the dreary place. She grinned, liking the idea. Already, with more food in her system, she felt positive thoughts begin floating back to her, erecting the layout of plans she would practice

in the next few days, collect as much food as she could, salvage what supplies she wanted from the capping saw, loaded all into a shopping cart or a bigger rolling backpack, whatever she could find. Krista paused her steps, however, thinking that she heard something behind her. She turned around and unsurprisingly there was nothing. Perthurbed, but not frightened. She chalked it up to the echoes of her own footfalls, reverberating in odd ways in the cave-like structure she now walked through. It had almost sounded like a clattering sound, though.

Something far different than her rubber soles connecting to the linoleum below. Not metallic clattering, though. Nothing so brazen or loud. it sounded vaguely more subtle, like someone was dropping sticks upon other sticks. All the same, she shrugged it off and found the camping store after a significant amount of backtracking. She shone her flashlight inside,

pleasantly surprised to see how untouched the place appeared. Displays were still up, and boxes were still neatly organized on shelves. Her light, glazed over something white, a creamy pale, and standing slightly taller than her. Two orbits resided within. In the brief second they'd been illuminated, she was convinced they were eyes. Shooting the light hurriedly back, she breathed a small sigh of relief to see it was just another mannequin, dressed in a fisherman's overalls and wearing a bucket hand.

He was holding a fishing rod in one hand, appearing in the motion of mid-cast. You're alone, she murmured, reassuring herself. Relax. Krista began to rummage through the various displays, searching for the items most befitting of her future endeavors. In her search, she managed to scrounge propane tanks, a propane lantern, a tent in its packaging, a sleeping bag, a propane stove, and a Swiss. army knife. She was ecstatic to find that it did indeed have a can open a module among several other features. Screwing a tank into the lantern, she watched the two yellow orbs within begin to heat up and gradually become lighter until they glowed white hot, lighting up nearly the entire store.

Smiling in satisfaction, she turned her rifle's flashlight off and looked at the gear she had taken. Oh, just got to find a way to move the rest of this, she muttered. Peering at the items quizzically, as she finished the last of her taco shells, and dropped the plastic wrappings they'd been housed in to the floor. Her growling stomach had finally seemed to quiet. But she still desired more substantial nutrition, nonetheless. However, Krista wished to deploy the stove before doing anything else, even if it meant waiting a bit longer for her food to be ready.

she would much prefer hot beans to coal. By the lantern light, she began to work, pulling the green metallic thing from its cardboard box and figuring out how to stand it up properly. As her metallic clanks and clatters echoed through the empty place, she again thought she heard something. That different clattering. By the lantern light she began to work,

pulling the green metallic thing from its cardboard box and figuring out how to stand it up properly. As her metallic clanks and clatters echoed through the empty space, she again thought she heard something, that different clattering. She immediately paused and stared to the store entrance, attempting to discern whether she was imagining the noise or not. It sounded distant, and yet easily distinguishable

in the ubiquitous quiet she was immersed in. She waited for 30 seconds. There was nothing. About to go back to work. Krista nearly gasped aloud when the noise, now very distinctly not her own, came again from far away outside. She knew the noise.

It had been something she'd heard earlier, that same hollow clattering. She took several deep breaths. and began rationalizing it to herself. Yes. Maybe the wind had come in through the hole she'd made to enter, and was knocking things over all the way back in the clothing department. Maybe air changed had smelled her,

and was wandering dumbly around, searching for its supposed meal. Maybe a person had followed her in. She shuddered lightly at that last thought. She wanted to dim the lantern. as to not give away her position, but she was more resourceful than that. She began thinking of how to proceed when the noise came again, definitely in the direction she had entered from. She grunted, sighing indignantly. She would have to pause her respite

in order to find recourse to her situation. She figured the noise must have been the mannequins in the clothing store being knocked over, based on the hollow nature of the house. the noises. She felt disoriented by the fact that no changed would seek the figures out for the false promise of fresh flesh. They would not have any smell. No, it would have come straight to her position, shambling along the path she had previously taken. No, it couldn't be changed. The noises kept echoing down the enormous hallways, increasing in frequency and, as it seemed loudness. At this point, they almost seemed violent. Whatever it was, it did not have subtlety in mind. If it was a person trying to sneak up on her, wouldn't they try to be stealthy?

Krista quickly thought of a plan and elected to keep her lantern alight. Rather than dim it in the hopes of avoiding confrontation, she figured, whatever it was, she didn't want to be. She didn't want sharing them more with her. Rather, she stepped behind the sales counter and propped up several large boxes to obscure her upper half, save a small slit, enough so she could poke her rifle barrel through and cast a single, steely blue gaze above the iron sights. She'd moved the lantern closer to the front of the store, darkening the area she had sequestered herself within. Taking hold of a can of fish bait, she arched an arm upwards and heaved it across from her encampment, seeing it land in the linoleum hallway and tumble across loudly until it smacked against

the cage, sealing off the beauty store directly across from her. Whatever was inside with her, the noise she made would expedite its attempts to seek her out. The distant clattering stopped and her eye lowered, ready to fire upon whatever came into view. If it was a person, she would yell at them to put their weapons down. If it were people, she would gun them down unless they were unarmed. If it was anything else, she would also gun it down. An idle thought crept through her mind that maybe an animal had wandered inside. her mouth watered at the prospect of meat.

Even if it was a stray dog, just the thought of greasy, succulent, delicious flesh caused her to smile almost loophily. She would marinate a choice cut in the enchilada sauce, let it ferment nicely for a few hours, and then she would sear it on the propane stove until her nice, crusty char appear on each side. then she would serve beans on the side, hot and soaked in their own juices, coalescing with the grease of the meat, as she stewed over the potentially delicious meal.

She again began to hear the clattering, closer, louder. Its echoes tumbled down the hallway, coating every inch of empty space with noise. The balcony walkways of the second floor above her sounded as though they were. were the source of the noise, even though she was almost positive it was on her floor. Despite the increasing intensity of the noise, she still had great difficulty in discerning what exactly could be creating such a cacophony. She imagined, again, it would be the noise of someone running around with a backpack full of sticks, dry and clattering. It was the noise of hollow plastic tumbling across a flat linoleum floor, being dragged violently by some anomaly of evolution, depraved enough to commit such an unsettling act.

It sounded like bones, even. Bones. Her narrowed, concentrated eye opened, as did her other one. Her iron sights blurred from her focus of vision as the latter thought began to fester within. No, no, why did she have to think of that? Something made of bones, grisly and charred, wet, stinking and rotting. Something unimaginable, something impossible. Images of horrific things flashed through her head as she desperately tried to remain focused on her weapon sights. Her breathing had increased, as had her heartbeat.

Christa's stomach twisted and turned in nervousness. She began remembering the Piranha movie. The scenes she had repressed so deftly seemed to bubble back up with a fraction of the effort it took to hide them away. The man, the man, he was alive, the cow, alive. The morbid curiosity had stemmed from such a trauma, however. She had researched, hoping to further sequester. to the idea into disbelief, that mere fish could do such things to her fellow humans. Though exaggerated, the movie had not been terribly far off from reality she had found out.

Sitting at a computer chair, her young, glimmering eyes quivering in fear as she scanned the articles, reading through actual events of piranha killings. The events were rare, but not impossible. They had happened. Chemical accidents where flesh was wholly melted away, leaving the macabre remnants, even more common, especially in third world countries. She hated the thoughts, but their intensity seemed to be surging as an insurmountable epicenter of fear began to rock her to her core. Her brain was trying to convince her that something evil was coming towards a storefront. something ungodly some new type of change that retained nerve function even after its flesh had been

eaten off just like the piranha victims what was coming toward her was a human skeleton and it wanted to eat her it would eat her alive it's terrible dry teeth grinding and hissing as it would bite chunks away from her screaming form. His strength would be impossible, even lacking in muscles. It would snap her own limbs like toothpicks, breaking her body until she couldn't run anymore. She would watch helplessly as it tore into her soft parts, taking scores of intestine and guts out with every savage tear, digging its bloody skull deeper. Shut up! She wished. She wished. whispered, gritting her teeth, stealing herself to fire. She was infuriated to feel tears running down her cheeks, in disbelief of how much she had let her nerves get the better of her.

It was an animal. No, it was a changed. It was a person. Whatever it was no childhood nightmare, as her brain betrayed her into believing. That was completely irrational. The clattering ceased. The total silence returned. Christ was shocked to only hear the beating of her heart in her ears again. She held her breath in anticipation, pursing her lips as the noise had been so loud. She assumed whatever it had been was just around the corner. And then, unbelievably, a voice came. Hello? small and timid, feminine. It sounded so incredibly familiar. Krista was given pause. She lowered her weapon and her sharp blue eyes widened when she realized who it had belonged to.

Crystal? She replied. Krista, is that you? The voice asked. It was impossible. there was no way her sister the sister she knew had no clue where Krista was could possibly have found her and followed her into the darkness step around the corner crystal let me see you in the light Krista demanded incredulous it had to be some other woman playing a trick on her someone who knew of her

sister and was manipulating Krista to drop her guard. The dark-haired girl's jaw drop, however, when she indeed saw her very own sister step out from around the corner, arms folded behind her back politely, and her eyes fluttering in that sickening, girlish way that she'd hated so much. The hetachromia eridium, even at her distance, she could tell one eye was blue like hers, and the other was green, and the dyed red. hair, the voluptuous frame, even she had to admit, she was sometimes envious of, despite herself. She was standing before her, and Krista could not believe it.

She pulled her rifle off her sling and placed it on the counter in front of her. Krista slowly walked around and stepped closer to her sibling in utter shock. Why didn't you say something when I first went in? Krista asked, lacing her words with characteristic haughtiness to hide her happiness at the chance meeting. I thought you were something else. Her sister smiled sweetly. What did you think I was? She stooped down and picked up the lantern, so it was closer to her pretty face.

I don't know. Krista put a hand to her aching head and looked to Crystal, finding herself returning the smile. God, I'm just glad it's you. What happened to you anyways? How the other's safe? Krista. Her sister spoke in a low, goading tone. What an earth did you think I was?

Krista cocked an eyebrow, perplexed. Why? What does it matter? Crystal's smile turned a bit darker. her brow lowered and her lips grew tight in the grin the shadows cast dramatically over her face took a more unpleasant turn crystal she asked vexed by her sister's odd disposition what's wrong with you did you think maybe i was a monster she asked in a hissing whisper in the same a second she had finished the bizarre question. She shot a hand up to the knob of the propane

lantern and quickly extinguished the light. In the brief split second, Krista had to react, to gaze upon her sibling for one final time. She had seen a flash of something. Maybe it had been in the shadows, but her eyes seldom lied to her. In that flash of light, there had not been a loved one standing before her. No, it had looked deathly skinny, dry, skeletal, without flesh, missing eyes. Krista cried out in fear, screaming her sister's name repeatedly as she stumbled backwards, reaching for her rifle desperately, yearning to turn the flashlight on. Crystal, She exclaimed, bumping into the counter and rubbing her hands over the smooth, cold top, seeking helplessly for her weapon, for her only light source.

In the pitch black, she heard a terrifying, loud crash, as though glass had been violently shattered. It came from before her, sounding as though the lantern had been heaved through a window with great force. The fear within was staunch. fully imbuing her every racing thought as she found nothing but emptiness in every impending grasp. She shot a hand down and yanked her pistol out, wildly waving it back and forth, aiming at nothing she could see. There was nothing but a wall of black before her to focus on.

Crystal! She squeaked, her voice hardly escaping her choked throat. Her hand not gripping the pistol with white knuckles kept searching vainly in her supposition that it was even still there. After several seconds of fruitless search, the terrified woman pulled waywards from the counter and stumbled forwards, bumping into something hard and dry, something terribly cold. Instinctively, she yelped in fear, throwing her aim forward. forward and yanking the trigger. The gunshot was deafening in the relatively enclosed space, the echoes reverberating more potently than the clattering ever had.

In the terse flash of yellow, there had been a smidgen of a sight, something to give a marginal piece of feedback into what she had fired into. It had been the mannequin, of which had now toppled over from the Newtonian force suddenly implanted inside of it. Crystal! She croaked again, begging what she hoped was really her sister

to reply. There was nothing. She fell back to the floor, patting it in desperation for what she hoped her A.R. 15 would be. After what felt like ages, but in reality was mere seconds, her finger scraped the metal barrel.

sighing tenuously in relief she yanked it up and shoved her firearm back inside its holster standing up christa fumbled for her light switch feeling intensely as though something was watching her with malicious intent at last she was able to activate the LED and quickly shone it back and forth throughout the store swallowing heavily as she rapidly understood there was nothing else within. She was alone. As Krista surveyed the store, she gleaned that the lantern had indeed been thrown through a front window. The tiny crystal-like shards of glass glinted back at her like stars in the dead night sky. She observed the wrecked lantern strewn across the way, residing near where she had tossed the fish bait to gain the intruder's attention. Climbbering forwards, her legs warped, with nauseous fear, Krista leaned down and snapped up her backpack,

keeping her eyes locked on the entrance and the threatening darkness beyond. The eerie silence had again returned. Now she could only hear the crunches of her boots upon broken glass as she slowly made her way outside the store, still feeling a strong sense of disquiet. Even disregarding what had just happened,

Her instincts were screaming for her to run away, to assume flight over any kind of fight. Her whole body seemed to be vibrating in fear, tense and impossibly cold as nervous beads of sweat ran down the nape of her neck. Despite the potential gains of remaining and salvaging what she could, Krista could not shake the overwhelming feeling of dread the place instilled in her. her, the sheer horror. Exiting the camping store, she looked behind herself, the powerful light beam casting its illumination as far back as the first tables and chairs of the food court. Beyond them, she could only see darkness. That same awful wall of black she had nearly been devoured by. Before she turned away, however, a distant form caught her. her attention.

Human. Shrouted mostly by darkness, but the outlines remained enough to allow her to discern that it was standing far away and staring back at her. Who the fuck are you? She screamed, filled with a terror-fueled fury. I'm going to shoot. The faraway form entered the peripheral light, however, and Krista was just as confused to it was Crystal again. Only she looked different this time. She was haggard and bedraggled. Her eyes were

wide with fear and her red hair was drenched in what appeared to be sweat. Even at this distance, Krista heard her hurried breaths and knew just how filled with fear her sister was. It frightened the older sibling to see her little sister in such a state. She was loathed. She was loathed both to reminisce a single experience she'd endured to witness another human being more terrified than her sister looked in that moment. Crystal! She shrieked, fed up with her games. Christa!

She sputtered. Her voice weak and choked with anguish. In the even further distance, there was an unbelievable noise. Something she was convinced could only have come from a banshy. A shriek, high-pitched and seemingly never-ending. It sounded close behind her sister, some unknown nightmare of folklore lurking just behind the veil of black. Crystal! The older sibling cried, beginning to run forward.

No! Crystal let out a blood-curdling scream as something impossibly fast yanked her down in a blur. She smacked her head on the voice. floor going down and cracked it open. As blood began to spill profusely downwards from her gaping wound, the younger sister looked up for a final time, her gaze latent with intense sadness and fear. Then something dragged her beyond the flashlight's reach and into the darkness violently. Her screams were the only part not obscured by the spectacle, as they quickly swelled into louder, more high-pitched, wails of agony.

Krista wanted to rush forward and help her poor sister, but she was rooted to the spot, petrified in a horrified stupor, as the cacophony of shrieks were rapidly supplemented by loud tears and splats along with wet snaps. Krista ground her teeth to dust in terror, unable to even. scream in her own fear as tears liberally spilled down her cheeks and dripped onto the cold linoleum beneath. The screams continued, along with the wet, disgusting smacks and slurps of some unseen horror, devouring her sibling with a further only possible in ancient lore. Then, unbelievably, horribly, pieces began to fly out of the darkness and into her light's

beam as the yells of her sister finally ceased. Something red and grisly, something sickeningly wet and bloody, still coated in a fine layer of meat and sinew, a bone. Krista's mouth opened to scream, but nothing escaped, save for a hoarse whisper. More came. Humorai. reined ribs, a pelvis, pieces of phalanches and metatarsals, fragments chewed and torn by an abomination. And as a final horrifying centerpiece, a circular, red-yellow object like a porcelain ball tumbled to rest in front of the rest of the gristle-coated remains. It slid perfectly in place to stare at her. one blue eye the other green still remaining within the strands of red dyed hair still clung to the wet meat left behind

the eyes were wide almost cartoonish in size they looked directly at her dead but still so filled with pain and terror Krista did not scream She did not cry She did not watch Even as the first glimpse of the monster in the shadows came into view She turned on a heel And sprinted with every fibre of her being Towards the way she had come

Her muscles burned But her horrified brain did not care of such trifles Running faster than any human before her The girl bolted down the hallway, not even thinking to fire her weapon. She could not fight her worst nightmare with a piece of metal, interwoven with polymers and plastics. A piece of lead, or even several, would not halt the monstrosity behind her. The clattering of its footsteps seemed to grow even closer as she desperately tried to escape. As it gained on her, she began to hear rapid clicks, in addition to the awful clatters

of its footsteps. She entered the clothing department, shoving past mannequins and toppling over any clothing racks that came into her path. It was only when she caught the glimpses of evening light streaming in through the board that she had pulled away and barreled into without a single thought of the glass beneath that she was forced to turn around. As she tripped over the threshold of the shattered window, falling backwards into the dead grass strewn with shards of broken glass, she was forced to cast but a single gaze upon the amalgamation of terror that pursued. It was a human skeleton, gigantic, nearly nine feet high. Its fingers were like claws, hanging with tendrils of fresh meat. Its insides were bloody, as though every piece of crystal it

had devoured, felt impotently through, splattering back to the ground of the kill sight. Only when she looked upon the head did she even think to scream. The head was the skull of a fish, enormous, completely disproportionate even to the mismatched skeleton it had been lodged into. Its eyes glowed a yellow hue, and its razor-sharp teeth reved up. and down at the speed of a hummingbird beating its wings. The clicking was more evident to hear now as its enormous eye sockets came within a foot of her face, ready to grind her expression into mincemeat with its chainsaw-like mouth.

As her screams continued, and it fell upon her, she squeezed her eyes shut, awaiting her impending doom. The agonizing pain of being devoured alive. the utter horror of becoming a mess of what she feared most after it was done like her sister. She screamed and screamed, but only after several seconds had passed, was she able to briefly quiet and peek into the more of darkness before her. The darkness, no creature residing within. Nothing eager to turn her inside out.

inside she saw a shadow not hers not possible as it stood within the black like a form of physicality and yet not it cast a shadow upon the darkness itself she stared with wide tearing eyes as it seemed to stare back at her then like a rush of spilled water it dissipated into the ground itself Krista shimmied backwards, not feeling the punctures of broken glass into her palm, as she made several metres of distance between herself and the square of black. She sat, breathing heavily, running a hand over her own body hurriedly, as to make sure she was actually alive, actually real. As she sat, tearing and bleeding at the edge of the parking lot, fully lived. in the cloud-covered evening, she pulled her knees close and buried her head into them. She began to cry, unable to control herself. As she wept, thoughts raced through her mind, unable to discern what exactly she had just witnessed. She asked herself what was real, what wasn't.

her sister, the monster, the noises. It had all been an hallucination. Krista sniffed deeply and wiped away her tears as she kept her seat, feeling too despondent to move from her position. As hot red ran down from both palms, she stared into the pale asphalt beneath. Even as rain began to patter downwards from the pale above, she remained. It wasn't real. There was no conceivable way. There just wasn't. It had been her nutrient-deprived brain, playing tricks on her.

Even as she rationalised it to herself, Krista felt the difficulty in assuaging just how real it all felt. The total horror she had been consumed by. It wasn't real, she whispered. It wasn't. After nearly an hour of sitting, doing her best to explain away everything to herself, Krista stood and looked to her bloody hands, and then to the pale, gradually dimming sky above. It hadn't been real, but... She had to find Crystal now, more than ever.

Not that she doubted she was hurt, or worse was out there. there, but certainly not inside the mall. Crystal was alive somewhere else, and Krista resolved to find her. She knew this, because even in her stupor of terror, she remembered something. Something her brain had gotten wrong. Crystal's right eye had been blue, and her left was green, the heterochromia eridium. In reality, it was. In reality, it was. reversed. Krista chuckled in a jaded manner, the sound completely dry and devoid of any actual latent humour. Lightheaded and still recovering from her exhaustion, she made a final approach to the original white wall where she had gleaned all the other graffiti messages. She looked to her

hands with a depressed, surreal stoicism. Extending a bloody finger, Her eyes were empty and pale as she inscribed her own warning. After the admonishment was complete, she took a few seconds to read it herself, and then turned around, ready to collapse and sleep somewhere dry. Then she would find the others. Then she would find her real sister, not some monstrous hallucination. As she exited the parking lot, searching for an empty house to rest inside.

The rain began to pour onwards, though her message remained guarded by a high awning. The caution read, Satan's theater. And so once again, we reach the end of tonight's podcast. My thanks as always to the authors of those wonderful stories and to you for taking the time to listen.

Now, I'd ask one small favor of you. wherever you get your podcast wrong, please write a few nice words and leave a five-star review as it really helps the podcast. That's it for this week, but I'll be back again, same time, same place, and I do so hope you'll join me once more.

Until next time, sweet dreams and bye-bye.