Death is Messy

After spending nearly an eternity in deafening silence, the truck starting up was an aggressive roar to my ears. I mumble a curse and roll out of my snipe position onto my side away from the window. As I'm flipping positions, I switch on the safety of my rifle with my index finger. The idiot that I was intending to shoot, but I wont now, thought he would get to wherever he was going with that truck. I won't bother to kill him now, he is already dead. The brilliant simpleton must really not have been paying attention these last three years. There are monsters far greater than man roaming at night (huge claim I know) I thought snidely. I’ve no love for people, since that day everything went to shit. Now we all, those left still breathing, have far greater problems. Not sure how this guy managed to get working gas or how he even got the rust bucket started in the first place, but Mhm this man was about to have a really bad day. I peer down at him from my crumpled ruin of a “building.” I spin on my heel and start looking for some decent cover. The building will work, there’s no time to head anywhere else, but they will likely search the building, once they’ve finished their meal.

I’ve got about a minute to find something decent in here, which isn’t much, before those things come out to play. I spot in the room adjacent to the one I was perched in, a piss reeking blanket. It has some holes in it from the mice, but it will work for what I need it for. I shake some droppings off, curling my lip in disgust, but this is life or death so...It’s a good thing, because just as I pull it over my head and squeeze into the corner, we all run out of time. I can hear the thuds from them pounding the sides of the still running truck. Next my blood runs cold and I have to fight my innate instincts that tell me to run. I think even if that’s what I wanted-needed-to do, I would be frozen in my hunched position. There are several types of fear, there’s the kinds you can overcome, and then there are the kinds where you are powerless against. These types of fear come from your instincts that are triggered, because the thing that causes it- isn’t human. My fear is triggered when I hear their inhuman screams of hunger. A hunger so deep, we never understood it and it damn sure was never sated, no matter how many of us they ate. Next I hear the poor stupid man’s screams, as they found a way into his truck and started tearing his limbs from him. That’s another part, they enjoyed torturing their food, maybe it added flavor to the fear soaked meat. Maybe the daft man thought the metal and glass of the truck could keep them from reaching him and he could travel vast distances with it. He was wrong and this mistake cost him greatly. His screams make me want to claw my ears off and they seem to go on forever- until silence emerges. The truck still howls and sputters, as if mocking. Nothing moves. I can't hear any shuffling feet- nothing. There’s a squeak, and it’s close. I can’t see much in the darkness through the holes of my nasty blanket. I settle down to wait and pray their vision is still shit. I wait for hours not daring to move and when the first rays of light seep through the windows I know they have gone. I shake the foul blanket that saved my life, from me.

There is- was a mouse in the room with me, that must have been the squeak I heard. It now lies shredded in a corner opposite my own. There was one of those things feasting so close to me. It didn’t even want to eat the mouse from the looks of it. Gore and innards are strewn about the room and swirls were painted with the blood along the floor. That’s new never seen them do that before. My eyes follow the blood graffiti and I stifle the horror building as I see the blood trailed hand prints lead over to where I had hidden last night. They stopped once they reached the blanket. I am indeed a lucky bastard to have survived the night. Sheer dumb luck, any further walking in that direction, and I would have been discovered. I take in a deep breath and hold it for a count of three and release it. As the air leaves my body, so does my fear. This is the other type of fear I told you about, this one you do have the power to control. Time to be a bad ass, I pick up my rifle and head down to the truck. It had died sometime during the night, likely ran out of gas. Oh look the kind man left his gas tank, that he had used to fill the truck partially. It’s sitting untouched beside the truck. That is all I let myself see of the carnage. It’s amazing how much blood is in a body. I fill the tank taking care to avoid touching the gore and bits of flesh caked to the side of the truck.

Well thank goodness for stupid people, I think as I hear the truck’s rumble again. I drive away leaving that awful scene behind me and my part in it as well. The man is dead; my job here is done and I get to travel in style on the way back.