startled. “What was that?” she whispered.
Ed shook his head.
Then he heard the familiar clicking sound coming from the deli which they’d just passed. And would have to pass again to get back to the ladder.
“Follow me,” he said. He held his gun in front of him, as he inched toward the opening to the deli. Behind him, Lisa held her shotgun, ready.
He peered into the deli, and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Beyond the deli, he spotted two aliens wandering the aisles of the store, oblivious to him, and seemingly walking without purpose.
What the hell are they doing in here, browsing?
Lisa screamed behind him. Ed spun around and watched as Lisa was knocked to the ground by an alien behind her. The gun slipped from her hand and slid on the floor and Ed took aim at the creature, but it was too tangled with Lisa to get a decent shot.
Lisa kicked up at something that looked like it might have been a stomach, and the alien fell back. Lisa scrambled to get up and run toward Ed. The alien reached out and grabbed at her. It wasn’t able to catch her, but its claws lacerated her arm in one violent sweep and sent her bouncing off the wall.
A jet of blood shot from Lisa’s arm and she screamed. Then Ed could swear the creature sniffed the air before it charged back at her.
Ed ran toward the creature, pushing Lisa to the ground as he passed her and thrust himself between her and the alien. Ed opened fire. His first and second shot both landed somewhere in the middle of the alien’s face, but the creature didn’t slow and was on him before he could squeeze off a third shot.
Ed’s momentum met a brick wall as the creature hit him full force and sent him back hard into the ground. Ed’s head smacked the concrete with a loud, sickening thwack, which felt like thunder cracking his skull. The alien was on top of him, mouth gnashing, dark, putrid saliva dripping from its jagged rows of teeth and onto Ed’s face.
Ed’s hand, trapped between himself and the alien’s slippery body, still held the pistol. He twisted the gun into the thing’s guts and fired three more times until the alien’s hot guts bled onto him and it began to go into its death spasms.
Ed pushed the alien off of him and sat up, his head throbbing and woozy.
There was movement in the store, not far away, accompanied by shrieking. They had to get back to the ladder. Now.
He looked up at Lisa, who was aiming at the deli with her shotgun. “Do you have the flares?”
She nodded, holding the bag in the air and stealing a glance at her gushing wound.
Ed said, “Come on, we’ll get that cleaned upstairs.” He grabbed Lisa by the wrist, then led her toward the ladder. Beneath the hatch, Ed stepped to the side and motioned for Lisa to climb first.
Behind them, a cluster of the aliens poured through the deli and into the stockroom, shrieking and knocking into boxes as they came.
“Go!” Ed yelled.
Lisa scrambled up the ladder, the field pack on her back and shotgun wedged like a sword. The first two aliens dropped to all four and ran toward them like some kind of demon hell hounds.
Ed fired, but only had one bullet left, which missed its mark.
“Fuck!” he screamed as the aliens raced toward them. They were 40 feet away and closing.
“Go! Go!” Ed screamed as Lisa was only about 10 feet up the ladder. They had to get out of range of the aliens’ long limbs.
It sounded like an army behind them. She scrambled faster. Ed raced up the ladder closely behind her as the shrieks and clicks multiplied beneath them. He was about six feet from the ground, and didn’t dare to look down. He raced up blindly, praying a large claw wouldn’t swipe at his feet and bring him down to his death.
Something clanged on the ladder just beneath his feet and Ed had to look down. He saw an alien reaching up, swiping at him, missing him by just inches.
Lisa sped up and crawled through the top of the hatch. Just as Ed was within reach of the hatch something sharp
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