Now the only colour on its face came from its eyes. Small slits that curved upwards on the outside and downward inside, like a letter S on its side. They glowed the greenish-blue of the sea with a little red in the corners at first, but that faded away in an instant as it narrowed the triangular eyes to needlepoints, staring down the men in front of it with a pupil-less glare.
It seemed to focus on Raine’s hand, still clutching a large tuft of Cathy’s hair between his plump fingers. He let go as soon as he realized this, but the creature’s gaze seemed fixated on him now, its claws twitching with anticipation. A growl emanated from deep within the beast, its lip curling in tune with it. It sounded like a kettle full of water boiling, that deep hatred bubbling up from inside it as it stood poised to extend upon them at any given moment.
Cathy lay on the floor in the centre of them. There was a gash traveling along the right edge of her jaw that was bleeding down onto her neck, along with a red spotty patch of skin on her forehead and shoulder from where Al and Bram had dragged her across the carpet. Her clothes were ripped and torn, but other than that were still on her. Her eyes had still been closed tight shut, but now started to open as she looked up in the direction that the snarling voice had come from.
A smile spread across her lips. You’re fucked now, she thought to herself, as the last of her assailants’ hands left her body.
Phillips turned back toward his record player, eyeing the gun that lay upon it, loaded with four bullets still.
Slowly, it crouched down onto all fours until its claws danced along the floor, tearing up tiny shards of fabric as it did. Raine raised his eyebrow quizzically, regarding its actions with fascination even as perspiration began to bead and dot his brow.
All at once its legs extended again, catapulting the creature forward almost too fast for Raine to see. Its arms rose high above its head and its feet bent up to shoulder level, each big toe sprouting a claw of its own that was easily twice as long as the ones on its fingers. Raine let out a high pitched wail as the monstrosity landed against his chest like that, its arm coming down hard and plunging themselves into the doughy flesh of his back. Blood forced its way out from between each nail, drawing long red lines down his back and making it look striped as the blood seeped out into his shirt. There was an audible hiss as each of the middle claws punctured a lung, as Bram suddenly found it very hard to gather the air to power his screams.
Phillips and Al each dove to either side away from the creature. Phillips scrambled toward his record player, while Al started backing up toward the door, afraid to turn and run or do anything that would take his eyes off of the creature for even an instant.
Raine stopped screaming, his eyes growing so wide he thought his eyeballs might fall out as he stared into the creature’s aqua eyes. He could tell now that they were scaled too. Made up of millions of little octagons that glimmered against the light from the street, like the eyes of an insect. They seemed to look directly into his soul with their unblinking, remorseless stare. Then, for a brief instant, he thought he saw something else in the demonic stare. For a moment, he could have sworn he saw a glimmer of happiness. Then the long claws at the end of each foot dug into each of the pectoral muscles on either side of his chest. His eyes bulged further still and his mouth drew into an o-shape as the creature continued to stare at him. All at once, it brought its hands up and kicked its legs down, opening up Raine’s chest and back wide with one smooth motion. It kept kicking over and over again, sending shards of skin flying and spattering blood in all directions. Raine found his breath again and began to scream anew, the creature digging its teeth into the trapezius muscle at the left of his neck, the skin having already peeled away under the force of its claws. As it dug its yellowed teeth into the muscle, the milky protective sack punctured and tore itself off, the muscle pulling free of its tendons and snapping from the bone like a rubber band, sending more dark crimson sloshing against the wall, smattering over a painting of Kansas and turning the Sunflower on it a dark orange. By this time Raine was bellowing out words that didn’t even make sense together, the pain having driven him nearly out of his mind as it overloaded his brain’s ability to process it.
-BANG-
The sound rang out like thunder as the creature’s neck seemed to explode, sending black tendrils flying in all directions. A few feet away, Cathy’s eyes went wide as she turned in shock to see Phillips, again standing next to his record collection, holding his smouldering pistol in his quivering hands.
The creature’s body slammed against the floor next to where Raine lay, the claws on its feet retracting almost instantly. It lay there for a moment and all was still.
With
