Hellspawn - part 16
PART 16
Original prompt, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15
Patrick stared at the night sky from outside the bathroom window, the air was chilly and he could see his own breath. For once in his life he looked forward to the winter, hopefully those things would leave; go into hibernation or simply just die. He doubted it was as easy as that. The trees were casting an orange and brown hue over the setting sun as light reflected off their dying leaves, they reminded him of the humans dying in mass over just a short period of time. He sighed as he followed one of the falling leaves to the ground joining with the hundreds of fallen others, was there any hope at this point?
“What if it’s just us?” a soothing and gentle voice came from besides him, he was surprised Morteus had not commented on his question. Patrick turned to see Julie in his bathrobe stood beside him with damp hair. He looked down at her leg which exposed half of her wound, she had been out for a week and he wasn’t sure she would have survived much longer without having drank or eaten anything.
“I hope so, I don’t think we could survive another visit from one of them.” He could see Morteus smirking, but there was a sense of urgency in his eyes to find them while they were still weak and unprepared. While Julie was unconscious he had revealed the one they killed had disobeyed orders, he was meant to have told them where they were but he refused to. He wanted their souls to himself, to their misamusement he got killed fairly quickly before he was able to unwillingly give away their location. Patrick took a huge amount of satisfaction in this, after everything they had done every little thing they do that angers the monsters brings him a feeling of satisfaction.
“I mean us.” Julie said staring into the woods. “Humans, is anyone out there?” there was no way he could tell her at this point, the radio wasn’t working properly and the tv just showed that same message on repeat every minute.
“I don’t know, I like to think there is. The military must have retaliated, they must have figured out they’re weak to the cold by now, there must be some safe haven out there… somewhere we can run to. The radio isn’t working right now, all channels are blocked by that stupid message. I’m working on a way to override it but it’s pretty difficult to do, I only ever learnt how to use it and not the technicalities.” Patrick hated telling Julie things looked hopeless, he wanted to look at her and see hope in her eyes. Not disappointment and despair.
“You’ve been busy haven’t you? While I was out I mean.” Julie said while looking back at the cabin, Patrick laughed.
“Yeah, you could say that.” He had indeed been busy, all he could think about was her. She had been laying there about to die at any moment for all he knew and there was nothing he could do about it, the passive urge to hurry her into the jeep and drive to the nearest hospital was overwhelming. He couldn’t think of any other time he had felt so hopeless, he couldn’t help but think he had put her into this mess and that he should have done things differently on that day. Then perhaps it would be him lying on the sofa and not her. When you look back on events you realise all the things you could have done differently, none of them make you feel better.
To keep his mind off her as she slept he had deliberately kept himself busy, within the first day they had chopped the monster up and thrown it into the woods for the bears to eat, if there were any more bears left. He had fixed the freezer door, which was the most important thing, no door means no cold temperature and no cold temperature means the meat rots. He had recruited Daniels help, it was clear he wasn’t a very adept person and had been spoon fed throughout his entire life but it was all Patrick could work with. Isabella mainly looked after Julie, if Patrick tended to her then he would end up spending the whole day by her side never able to leave. If he did that then this place would stop working and then they would all die for sure.
The door to the bunker was next, the monster had destroyed that completely and a whole new door was needed, luckily he had enough spare material to build another one. That kept Daniel busy for a while too, not that his whining was appreciated much as if he didn’t count himself lucky. “Daniel.” Patrick had said when they had been working on cutting off a segment of metal, Daniel had just complained that there wasn’t any internet to find out what was going on or if any of his loved ones were still alive when Patrick stopped sawing and looked at him with a stern face. “You’re not the only one who’s having to go through with this. You’re not the only one who has lost loved ones or friends. It’s time to stop acting like a child because I need you right now, I need you to focus on what’s more important now, survival. Not the bloody internet, not the fact that you most likely won’t be able to play any more of your bloody video games, not the fact that all your favourite star wars celebrities are most likely dead. It’s time to man up and smell the coffee, we are on our own! You are so bloody lucky to have survived, lucky that thing was too busy occupied with your friends for you to escape, lucky that you stumbled into my place right when you needed it, lucky that thing didn’t kill you rather than just taking one of your eyes! Lucky you can even see at all!” Patrick’s face was going visibly red, a clear sign that the stress was getting too much for him. Daniel was staring back at him with a meek look.
“I… I’m sorry I just…” He struggled to find words.
“No, I’m sorry I yelled at you like that you have every right to talk about how you’re feeling. We’re all angry and we’re all crapping ourselves one of those fucking things is going to show up any moment now and finish us off.” Patrick had calmed his demeanour but the thought of what the monsters had done made him shake. He hadn’t told Isabella or Daniel that they were in his and Julies head, it will only make them feel more hopeless. Morteus had sensed his diminishing state and had taken advantage of it, telling him how he failed his wife, telling him how she was going to die because of him. Patrick did not know how he had gone so long without giving Morteus the satisfaction of a reply. He turned to Daniel and said, “Say Daniel, have you ever been hunting?”
“Erm… no.” Daniel had turned to Patrick with a questioning look.
“Come on, let’s get outside and get some fresh air.”
“But why? Wouldn’t you rather be here with Julie? We have enough meat already and those things are out there… we can’t use the gun.”
“I have a crossbow, let’s go.” Patrick said before walking off before Daniel could say anything more. He followed him, there wasn’t much else to do anyway while Isabella looked after Julie.
15 minutes later they were both prowling through the woods with a crossbow in hand and the M1, just in case. Daniel had to carry the crossbow as Patrick was more adept at firing a gun than him and if they bumped into one of those things then they needed the best chance they could get. “What are we looking for anyway?” Daniel asked.
“Anything with a lot of meat on it really, Deer, Bear… Goat.”
“You get goats out here?” Daniel asked with a bewildered look.
“Yeah, sometimes. I doubt you do now though.”
“So…” Daniel started after a long pause, “How did you and Julie escape anyway? You got here much later than we did surely they must have been able to easily kill you?” Patrick looked at Daniel with no answers, he had a good point.
“I don’t know, sheer dumb luck really, I’m surprised we didn’t even get hurt, although Julie kind of did. You couldn’t really say the same for everyone else there though.”
“Julie got hurt?” Daniel asked, Patrick mentally hit himself for saying that. “She looked fine to me when you got here.”
“I er… yeah, she was knocked to the ground by one of those things before I shot at it to stop it from killing her.” It was the half-truth, good enough. They walked between two trees to reveal a small clearing on the other side. “We should stick to the woods, we’ll be exposed like sitting ducks out there.”
“Remind me again why we’re out here?” Daniel asked in confusion. Patrick felt awkward to answer.
“I just wanted to spend some time just me and you, get to know each other a little better.” That wasn’t the real answer, in truth he wanted Daniel to see some hanging bodies. In an effort to drill into his head how bad it actually is so he could see how lucky he was, although there didn’t seem to be any bodies this far out. Daniel didn’t respond to that answer but broke the awkward silence with another question.
“So what’s it like out there? In the city?” Patrick stopped, he thought he heard something.
“It’s not pretty, let’s just leave it at that.” He put his hand up to tell Daniel to keep quiet and scanned the surrounding area, he could hear a small grunting noise.
“What is that?” Daniel asked. “One of those things?”
“No, I don’t think so.” They remained perfectly still. There was a sudden movement in the distance, behind a group of trees emerged a bears head sniffing the ground, it was foraging for food. Patrick motioned for the crossbow and Daniel handed it to him. He loaded an arrow and aimed at the bears head, if he didn’t hit it then they would have to resort to the gun so he took more time than he usually did. His finger was poised on the trigger and he began to slightly squeeze when out of nowhere one of the monsters pounced on the bear and started biting at its neck and attempting to stab it with its claws. Patrick and Daniel fell back in surprise and watched in terror with elevated heart beats.
“Shit! What do we do!?” Daniel spoke in a loud whisper.
“Just wait, hopefully it doesn’t see us.” Patrick said. The bear was surprisingly putting up a brave fight, it was swiping its claws at the monster and slashing it a few times but at the same time it was getting repeatedly stabbed by 6 limbs, the endurance of the bear was astounding. It managed to latch onto one of the monsters limbs with its teeth and began pulling it off. The monster responded by latching onto the bear’s neck and ripping out a part of its throat, but before it died the bear managed to rip the limb off in a final act of defiance against its predator.
“Holy fuck that bear didn’t go out without a fight!” Daniel looked on in amazement as the monster began eating the bear while limping where its 6th limb was torn off.
“That’s… interesting.” Patrick said to which Daniel made a questioning sound. “Hmm? Oh… it’s nothing.” Patrick quickly said. Daniel rolled his eyes and looked back to the bear which was most definitely dead now and watched as the monster ate it.
“A bear huh?” Julie asked with surprise, the forest now pitch black and haunting to look into. Patrick had told her about his hunting trip and how the bear had almost won in a fight against one of them.
“Yeah, how is that even possible?” Patrick responded, he thought the monsters were almost impossible to kill.
“Azrael told me they had wiped out the dinosaurs, how could they do that if they can barely kill a bear?” Patrick pondered this for a moment, maybe they far outnumbered the dinosaurs and were able to simply overwhelm them in numbers? Perhaps they were better equipped or evolved for dinosaurs? But then why would they devolve or not be as prepared this time?
“I don’t know, maybe it just got lucky.” Patrick looked on into the forest, the darkness now offering just as many mysteries.
“You don’t think…” Julie paused, thinking about what she was about to say. “That there’s more than just them out there, do you?” She looked at him with a questioning look.
“I don’t know Julie, all we can do now is just wait and see, and hope that help soon arrives.” She smiled and put her head on his chest, he wrapped his arms around her and took another look into the forest before walking back into the cabin.
Hope you enjoyed it! I may focus on replying to writing prompts for a bit to get more interest over here, so not sure how often I would update.
Come back later for Part 17
Posted Feb 12, 2017, 8:40 PM UTC · edited