She sat huddled in the darkness, tucked into herself, pressing into the tins stacked behind her. The cupboard door didn't lock, and the foul stench of the beast’s breath crept through the cracks in the old wood. It wouldn't smell her. If she could just keep still, it wouldn't find her.
A slick red pool was advancing under the door. The thick viscous liquid moved slowly over the cold stone tiles. The hollow crunch of bones between teeth resonated through her as the creature devoured the remains. It was just outside the cupboard now, this flimsy old wood was all that separated them.
She was frozen. The hard metal cans dug into her back, pins and needles rose up her legs, but she couldn't move. The humid breath of the hulking animal washed over her in sickening waves. A steaming, stinking flat tongue brushed at the line of light below the door, lapping up the escaping spoils.
It must have been hours she stayed there, frozen, unable to move. It took the slow dimming of light, the fading day, to draw her out of it.
She tried to stand, but her shaking legs gave way beneath her, sending cans clattering and splashing across the blood slicked floor. It took three more attempts before she was able to find the strength to support herself. She was bruised, her clothes, wet with cold congealing blood, clung to her in places.
She knew what waited on the other side of the door. There would be parts, eviscerated remains, destruction, smashed shelves, broken bits of bodies and furniture. It was always the same, when the beasts had been. There was no way to run from them, their vision was based on movement, they tracked by sound. They could tear a man to pieces before he had chance to react, paint the walls with a fine blood spray in a single chomp of its slavering jaws.
She was alone. Again.
It was better this way. She strode out of the cupboard, ignoring the squelch under foot, the crunch and squish of human crumbs. She had seen it enough times now. She didn't get attached. If others found her, she would stay with them, eat their food, sit in the warmth of their fire. Until they died. She never unpacked, she never integrated. She kept her life in the small, once green, backpack she was retrieving from by the back door.
The people she met always told her it was safe now. The beasts that had descended from the black sky had vanished, one by one, back to the abyss from whence they came. They promised her it was ok, that they hadn't seen a trace of the creatures in months. They were always wrong.
Sometimes it was weeks, sometimes it was months. The beasts always came. They moved silently, their huge bulking forms had an elegance as they stalked their prey.
As softly as they moved, they stank. A foul rotting stench that permeated the lungs, the only warning of death. She hid when she smelt it, as small and as still as she could make herself. The churning putrid fragrance left her frozen solid, unable to move, even as she sensed their wretched forms lumbering around her. It was like a trance, her breath became light, barely detectable. Her heart beat slowed, she withdrew into herself until it was over, until everyone was dead.
She would never forget the day her world ended. She had awoken to an almighty crash that shook the room. A thick black smoke filled the house. She had choked and spluttered, eyes streaming from the stinging smoke and the acrid rotting stench she came to recognise. The cracking of wood splintering, of bones snapping, the hiss and spit of broken flesh rung in the air. The yellow eyes of the beast, glinting and dancing, reflecting off every surface. She had stumbled outside, falling as she struggled to drag herself out of the burning building.
She had collapsed on the front lawn, the sky a mirror of orange and black, the flames seeming to reach up, devouring the night. Then the cracks appeared. The growing spider web that spanned the sky. The lines of fire that swelled and bulged in great goblets that fell to the earth in singeing balls of flame and dust. House, streets, cities, they all crumpled beneath the onslaught. Hundreds of the beasts dropped from the sky, ragged wrecks of rage and ravenous hunger. In a single night, the earth lit up like a second sun, only to fizzle out to eternal darkness, never again to be lit by the cities of man.
Most people had died on that first night. She had lay on the grass, unable to move, as the beast finally emerged from her house. She was stained with soot, the smoke still seeping into her very pores. It did not seem to see her. It had padded across the grass, pausing to sniff at her, until movement in the street caught its attention. It bounded three houses in a single leap to shred the lone figure running along the pavement into a misty haze of discarded parts.
She had lay there for two days. Unable to move. On the third day, it rained. As the cool, fat drops splashed on her face, running away in soot streaked lines, she felt the feeling return to her body. The soft rain washed away every trace of the blood and smoke, the dirty scent of death and decay masked by the comforting smell of grass in the rain. She had stood up, and walked away. She never looked back. She barely registered the still smoldering ruins as she walked out of what was once called a city.
Gradually, over the following weeks, she saw what looked like stars rising from the earth. Great burning balls of light shooting off into the sky, to disappear in a blink.
After that, no one saw any trace of the beasts, until it was too late, and the things were upon them. They lulled themselves into a false sense of security, she tried to warn them, she begged and pleaded with them. No one ever listened to her. They called her traumatized, hysterical, damaged by the Great Fall, as it had become known.
After a while, she realised there was no point in trying to convince them otherwise. They wouldn't believe her, it was too much for them. They were trying to rebuild, reunite, claw back from the brink of decimation. They gathered food, erected new structures, and as time passed, they became more relaxed. More convinced the beasts were gone. They would become less and less cautious, bonfires at night, laughing and singing in comradery. She could never join in. She knew better, she was always ready, always sniffing the air for the vaguest hint of them.
Until the day would come, and she smelt them. Every time, it happened. The sickening smell she had first encountered that day, crept in on the breeze, and she froze. Entranced. Barely able to process the slaughter around her. Never twitching, not even blinking, her unseeing eyes stared straight ahead, unaware of the carnage before them.
She never really remembered what had happened afterwards. She would remember catching the beginnings of that horrific scent; only to find herself hours, sometimes days later, awakening, drenched in blood, curled up among the remains of the dead.
They all told her the beasts were gone, they only lived on in her head. She had given up arguing with them, it hardly mattered what they believed once they were dead.
It was years now since she had even seen a hint of another person. She still saw the beasts. One of them anyway. She caught glimpses in the shadows of it’s ragged, lumbering, bulking mass of muscle and death. She had always encountered them in packs before. They appeared in groups of four or five, using their numbers to their advantage. They were never alone. But this one was.
Every night now, she saw it. Its bright eyes gleaming in the darkness. The foul stench hanging in the air never seemed to quite fade away. She no longer feared it, not like she once did. It no longer struck terror deep in her. It kept its distance, never approaching her. She wondered if they had always followed her like this. Keeping her alive to lead them to others. She had seen them coordinate attacks, the first beast emerging in a raging rampage, sending people fleeing into waiting jaws as the trap sprung. She could believe they used her as bait, but that didn't explain why it was letting her live now.
She no longer even looked for people, partly because she had no desire to lead the beast to them, and partly because she couldn't face not being able to find anyone. She hadn't seen a single living thing, or even another of the beasts, in so long now.
The beasts all looked the same to her. She had no way of knowing the one that stalked her like a distant shadow, was the same one she had met on that fateful night. The first beast to fall.
As the years had gone by, she began to take comfort in the glowing eyes, watching over her. They may both be alone in this world, but they were alone together.
I feel like there is a second part to this story, I have started writing it but I think I prefer it on it's own. The beast is part of an alien race working for the greater good of the galaxy, a complex creature who after stalking this one human for so long, has found it has grown attached to her. He has led this attack, with orders not to leave until they are all dead. The human lifespan is beyond insignificant to this other worldly creature, so he has decided to let her die a natural death. The last beast, and the last human.
Thank you for reading - hope you enjoyed - Love and Sparkle!
Photo Credit by Pixaby user Mysticsartdesign