Before her sight came back she could feel the seat beneath her and the steering wheel under her hands, so she knew she was in the same place she’d been taken from. The pure whiteness of the other place slowly separated into patches of color, and then, with a pop of changing pressure, sound and detail resolved. The first thing she saw when the world was fully back in view was a massive blob of flesh and teeth. It squatted in the middle of the gravel lot between her truck and the warehouse. Char screamed. The blob monster let out a howl like the devil’s teakettle and started lumbering toward her.
Without thinking, Char released the brakes, slipped the shifter into 4th gear, and eased down on the accelerator. The sudden rush of adrenaline felt like ice water running down her spine, and made her fingertips tingle. She wanted to put the hammer down, her fear demanding that she hurry, but years of experience took over and she eased the rig forward rather than spinning the drives in the gravel of the lot. The slight down-hill slope of the lot helped her pick up speed and she shifted up to fifth, flipped the selector switch to upper range and managed to get it into 6th gear before slamming onto the creature. It was massive, and the jolt rocked the truck, but couldn’t slow the momentum of nearly 80,000 pounds of combined truck, trailer, and freight. The monster’s feet dragged across the ground and its head thrust forward across the hood of her rig as she pushed it along. Huge yellowed teeth snapped, and a nasty mix of saliva and green icor sprayed across the windshield.
The truck picked up more speed as she hit the downslope to the dock, and then, with a crunch of metal and fiberglass, it came to a sudden, spine-jolting stop as it impacted the concrete of the loading dock. Char was whipped forward, her forehead bounced off of the top of the steering wheel, leaving her dazed and seeing lights. A trickle of blood ran down into her eyes from an impact split in the skin above her left eye. The windshield crazed into a thousand jagged cracks, but didn’t shatter. It was completely coated with viscous green and red splatter. The engine shuddered and died, rocking the whole rig with its death throes.
An information box popped up in her sight, followed by another, and another, and another, and they just kept coming. She stared at them for several seconds, too dazed to actually read them. Adrenaline made her hands and feet feel cold, and she couldn’t think straight. When she heard a scream from across the lot it shook her out of her unthinking shock. She pushed the boxes aside, unread.
Her right hand dropped to her side, fumbling to find the seatbelt release out of habit. Her clumsy fingers found the buckle, but no belt. She took a deep breath and told herself, “Think, Char. Stop reacting and think.” She could already feel the beginning of the bruising and stiffness she would suffer later, but for now the adrenaline helped her push the pain to the background.
She couldn’t see out of the windshield, but she guessed that all the info boxes were a good indication that the big monster was dead. It wasn’t the only monster, though. When she wiped the blood out of her eyes and looked around, she could see several smaller creatures. Her side mirror showed three of them attacking Steve and Lulu, and there were three more stalking toward her truck.
Reaching down with her left hand, she felt for the tire thumper she kept in the pocket of her door. The wooden baton wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was all she had handy. As she closed her hand around the thumper, she felt something else that gave her an idea, so she grabbed that as well.
The monsters were smaller versions of the giant beast she’d pinned with the truck. Hairless and corpulent, they had long scraggle-toothed snouts, like Lovecraftian opossums. They were each about the size of a large dog. They didn’t move fast, which gave Char time to prepare.
She dug around in the spare cup holder until she found a lighter. She hadn’t smoked in years, but she always kept one on hand out of habit. With the lighter in her left hand, and her lucky find in her right, she waited until the monsters were just outside the door of the truck. She lifted the handle to release the latch, but held the door closed until just the right moment.
When she judged that the first of the beasts was close enough, she kicked the door open, flicked the lighter to life, and depressed the button on the can of WD-40, sending a spray of flaming chemicals into the monster’s face. It let out a sound somewhere between a scream and a screech, and its skin began to blacken and bubble. It thrashed and writhed, like it was trying to bite at the flames that ate away at it. She turned the makeshift flamethrower on the next closest monster but it was smarter than its companion and backed out of range, hissing.
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Char’s flames sputtered out as the can ran out of propellant, and she threw it at the one backing off, missing entirely. Grabbing the tire thumper, she dropped to the ground. The third creature jumped for her face, and she swung more out of reflex than fighting prowess. The result of the impact when the wooden baton hit the skull of the creature was shocking to both parties.
The skull of the creature caved in and its body flew off to Char’s right, smacking into the concrete of the loading dock with a wet thump. The thick wood of the tire thumper splintered, the top part breaking away to leave a long shard of wood with a handle in her hand. “What the hell?” Char asked the universe, as she stared at the results in confusion.
She didn’t have time to wonder, though, as the beast that had backed off to avoid the flames came in for another try. Char tried to back away from the creature’s lunge, but came up short against the fairing of her truck. She flung up her left arm to protect her face, and the monster clamped down on her forearm, its teeth digging deep into her flesh. She brought her right arm up in a thrust, driving the sharp remains of the tire thumper into the monster’s abdomen, disemboweling it. Green blood and slimy viscera spilled out onto her legs and shoes. The monster released its grip on her arm and dropped to the ground, scrabbling weakly at the gravel. Char stomped down on its head, putting it out of its misery. Her gorge rose as she saw the mess across her lower half, but she swallowed hard and resolved not to think about it. She couldn’t afford to stop and puke in the middle of a fight.
A sharp yelp of pain pulled her attention to the other struggle. Steve was on the ground, not moving. Two of the creatures were down, and Lulu the pit-bull was rolling on the ground. Her teeth were in the last monster’s throat, and the monster was raking its claws against her sides, trying to get to her vulnerable belly. Char sprinted across the lot, surprising herself again by moving far faster than she should have been able to. By the time she crossed the space, Lulu was back on her feet, her teeth still buried in the creature’s throat, shaking its now limp carcass.
Seeing that the dog was victorious, Char scanned the lot for any more threats. When nothing else moved, she went to Steve’s side. It was too late to help him. Half of his throat was gone, and his eyes stared sightlessly at the sky. She knelt beside him, and reached out a trembling hand to close them. She knelt there for long minutes, her mind blank, her left arm burning with pain and dripping with blood.
At some point, Lulu dropped her kill and came over. The dog whined, and pawed at the unmoving body of her master. She nosed at Steve’s hand as though urging him to pet her. After a while, she gave up and licked Steve’s cooling cheek. Still whining softly, she moved over to Char and leaned against her, shivering. It was enough to knock Char out of her fugue. Char stroked the dog’s ears, “Hey, I’m sorry girl. This…” she trailed off, not sure what she was going to say. “What the fuck is going on? This can’t be real, can it?”
She looked around the gravel lot, her eyes resting briefly on each of the dead monsters, and realized for the first time that the run-down industrial park that had surrounded the warehouse was gone. There was nothing but thick, old-growth forest outside the rusty chain-link fence where there had been roads and warehouses and parked trucks. The sight made a chill run down her spine. The canopy was so dense that she couldn’t see more than a couple of trees deep into the undergrowth before it was lost in darkness, despite the brightness of the day.
Lulu whined again. Char shook her head as if to clear it and said, “Right. Those messages said something about the world being randomized. It is what it is, and sitting here won’t fix anything, will it?” She put a hand on the ground and pushed up to her feet. Her left arm had stopped dripping, but it was still a throbbing mess of pain and sticky blood. Lulu had long scratches down her side. “Come on, Lulu. I’ve got a first aid kit in my truck. We’ll get cleaned up and figure out our next steps.”
She knew Lulu couldn’t understand what she was saying, but talking to the dog helped her get her thoughts moving. Having another creature to take care of would be good for her, she knew. For all that her life had been spent on the move, she knew she tended towards coasting on inertia if she didn’t have something to shake her out of ruts. That’s part of the reason she’d kept driving after her husband passed. It was what she knew. But now the world had changed, and she couldn’t let herself fall back into old patterns.
If this Aldevari Dominion thought they could just move in and do what they wanted with humanity, they had another think coming. If she was going to help human-kind stay free, she was going to have to push herself to get stronger. If they wanted to train her people to be warriors, then she’d show them a warrior. But first she needed bandages. And maybe a strong drink.
