The Creature

The big beach was empty when they got there. Frank should arrive in a couple of minutes with the bottles. Absinthe, vodka and some wine for the girls. Speaking of girls, they weren't there either and Stan was getting worried. "Jimmy" - he said, his emo bangs covering half the face - "weren't the girls supposed to come with you?" "No."- Jimmy, the one with the long, surfist blond hair replied - "They come with Frank. He said he's pick them up after getting the booze." Andrew, the nerd boy scout one, was taking care of the fire : setting the rocks they had brought in a circle, then putting the sticks inside said circle. He then got two stones from his pocket and began trying to start the fire. "Let me, Andy, I have a lighter".
"Don't call me Andy, Jim. Call me Andrew. It's not that big of a name. Also, I can do it. You use your lighter for something else."
"Very well, I'll use it to light this AWESOME weed that my older brother gave me. And then I wont let you try it."
Andrew finally got the fire going, about the same time Frank and the girls and the booze arrived. They all sat round the fire, bottles and joints going left and right. Abby, the dark haired, green eyed and warm smile girl, was sitting next to Stan and Cloe, the token black chick was next to Frank, the other token ethnic character. In truth he was only 25% chinese, but it was more than enough to make the execs happy. He was also the older one, 22 years against the others average of 19.5 years. Just the right age to appeal to the demographic the execs wanted. Anyway, the kids were all around the fireplace, Frank with his hand on Cloe's thigh, and was whispering on her ear. She giggled, pretended to be ashamed, then got up, pulling him and they went closer to the shore line. There he took off his shirt, displaying his not-so-muscular body. Then he took the shows and pants, stripping down to his briefers. She strips too, panties and bra, both black with small silk details, showing that she had planned for him to see them. He goes head first into the water, takes his time under, and when she starts to look scared, jumps out in front of her, screaming something.
She tries to slap him, but succeeds only in falling into the water too. The kids looked when Frank screamed, and now were laughing hard.
Stan and Abby are now lying in the sand, oblivious to all around them, Jimmy has a void look on his eyes, a bottle on the left hand, a joint on the right one. He gives Andrew the bottle and gets up to go return some water to nature. He walks, drunk already, to the shoreline too, but before he can do what he wants, Cloe starts screaming to him : "Not here you fool! Go to the rocks!". Jimmy follows the pointing finger with his eyes and sees the said rock. He stumbles until he gets there, pulls the pants down, does his deed, and then falls back into the sand. Gets up and starts walking in what he assumes is the right direction, stopping only when knee deep into the water.
He looks around, not seeing his friends, not even the fire. He screams "Hey you guys! Where is everyone?" and nobody answers. So he finds which way is the sand, by stepping once in one direction, rotating 90º, stepping once, rotating 90º and stepping again and feeling the steep climb under his foot. Smiling he goes into the sand, not seeing the thing behind him. Once on the sand he looks around again. Nobody. Nobody. Nobo-- wait, is that a light? It looks like a light. He walks in that direction, but the thing behind him, at this point only a black human-shaped shadow, grabs him. It's hands look like they are fully covered by seaweed, but he is strong. Strong enough to drag the screaming boy into the water.
Back on the fire, Andrew is too drunk to even care about the fact that he is alone. Stan and Abby went to the right, in search of some.. privacy. By the sea, Cloe is sitting on the sand, and Frank is still inside the water, doing acrobatic dives to impress the girl. He dives once, comes up again, dives again, some four times, always different dives. After the fifth time, he doesn't come up. Cloe screams his name, "Not funny! Come out!" and a lot of other things the execs will want to cut out.
Finally, Frank comes up again, in the typical drown man position. Cloe goes to him, pulls him by the hair, screaming and insulting him, until she notices that there's something missing : Frank's face is not there. She screams again, this time more hysterical and less insulting. Next to the fire, Andrew is asleep, and says something to the effect of "not yet mommy" when Cloe changes the screaming style. She stops it altogether when the same seaweed covered arm comes from under the water and pulls her inside. Andrew still asleep, Abby appears, running from where she was, Stan follows her, still buttoning his pants. "Andrew, wake up! Where's Cloe? I heard her scream! And where the hell is Jimmy?"
Andrew looks at her, shrugs, and falls asleep again. "Stan, wake him up! I'll go look for them!"
Abby goes to the shore line, screaming her friend's name, and occasionally "Frank" too. She sees something on the water, closes in, screams hysterically when she notices it's a human arm. Her BFF's arm, to be more precise. Still that stupid "Tequila For Ever" tattoo next to the wrist. Stan comes running, with cries of preoccupation, in time to see his new girlfriend being taken underwater by the creature. He screams one of those bad words the execs will bleep, and runs to save his maiden. He succeeds only in giving her a few more seconds to live, since the monster stops eating her to kill him with a swift movement from the hand. The creature finishes eating the girl's face and torso, leaving the arms and legs floating in the water and drags the boy's body down, for a future meal.
Next day, Andrew wakes up in jail.
Three years after, on that same night, he kills himself with the bed sheets from his prison cell, tormented with the guilt of having killed his friends in a fit of madness.
Two weeks after, a strange man-eating creature is found in the shore.

Monster Killer

Blood and guts.
Everywhere I look, that was all there is to see.
And that horrible beast in front of me, at least eight feet tall, shinny horns and pointy teeth, huge muscular arms that were coming at me, to shred my body into blood and guts too.
I take one step back, one deep breath and grab the already loaded shotgun that was hanging of my shoulder.
I point it at the beast's face, right between his eyes :
"taste my hot lead, motherfucker!".
Blood and guts and monster brains.
Much better decor if you ask me.
There's more of them in this building, I can hear them.
The building was vacant, so I'm guessing this bodies are from the homeless people that broke the door in the back.
I reload the shotgun, check both the pistols, the knife, the grenades I hope I won't need to use, and the army riffle.
All ammo full, except one less shotgun shot.
This was a hotel, once.
Long corridors with door on both sides.
Not good at all.
They seem to be arriving in the top floors, I needed to climb five to find the first of them, and I have ten more to climb.
I want some music, but it would cover other sounds, and the damned helmet's HUD is not working fine.
One of the mikes was hit last week, and you bloody fool haven't fixed it yet.
But time to install a stupid detector that beeps whenever it gets too hot, that you had...
I FEEL IT when it's too hot, damn fool.
I think sometimes you confuse me with one of those stupid robots.
And speaking of it, there goes one.
I'd grab it, rotate the camera to me and smile my trademark evil smirk, that I know how much you hate, just to say :
"Spying on me again? I told you I can handle this, fool!", but then I couldn't smoke so peacefully.
"Sure you can handle it. Just like you could on that warehouse, last month?" - your voice in my ears is, as usual, to loud.
And I had everything under control.
You just wanted to boost up your body count.
The robot started moving again.
It's a standard all-terrain one camera, one gun bot, thanks for the great help, it just walks around following me and shooting at whatever moves.
Damn trigger happy bots.
Can I destroy it?
"Sure if you want me to spend the next week fixing the bot instead of your suit's sensors. "
Speaking of sensors, one monster is coming this way.
I need to start killing again.
Damn, I thought I had time to finish the damned cigarette this time...
Oh well.

This time I took the army rifle, semi-auto mode, three shots to the head and the monster is dead.
I have to admit one thing about your robots : they save work.
I put the damned thing checking every room, all I need to do is wait here for a while.
This time I might actually be able of finishing the cigarette.
I should have a direct link to the camera in the bot, but noooo, "it would ruin the aesthetics of the HUD".
"It totally would."
So I have to trust that it doesn't miss anything, while waiting.
Ok the bot is returning, floor clear, next one now.

Damn lazy elevators not working when there is no power.
Stairs, how much I hate thee.

Ok, sending the bot in first, waiting for gunshots...
There they are, my time, now with real guns.
Weak monster, this one. Big, but weak.
There were two of them here, but the damn robot got one before I did.
And it is checking the rooms now...
No more dead people so far, and the monsters are still all up there.
Something strange is happening in here.
The monsters normally run down to the streets as soon as possible, to feed.
This time only this three weak ones got down, but I can ear many more upstairs.
Ok, bot back, next floor.

Floor twelve.
Only two more monsters on the way up.
That's five so far.
And the sounds are getting closer.
Going up the stairs now.
I still have plenty of ammo, but I feel that something's about to happen.
Something I won't like.

Ok, sending the bot in.
"The robot was destroyed! I killed two, but there were too many! I counted ten, but there might be more."
I can ear them. Lots of them.
I'll throw a grenade before, damn waste, this things are expensive as fuck.
Pin off, count to five, throw, hide behind the door, explosion, arm the rifle, enter.
One at my left, half of one at my right.
The grenade took four away, wounded three more.
I can still count six others on the corridor.
One sweep and I got rid of half of them monsters.

One of the damn beasts is running in my direction.

One head-shot, plus some shots to the chest.
Remember the first one we killed?
"Yeah, we autopsied it."
It was before you were sent to a wheelchair by one of the monsters.
"They have a heart, just not a human one. It's some three times the size of ours, and as such, easier to hit as long as you shoot them IN THE CHEST!"
Yes, but I like head shots better, nothing beats the sight of flying monster brains.
Two more down and the clip is almost over, switching to shotgun.
No more of them in corridor, going to check the doors.
Room 1301, clear. 1303, clear. Same for rooms 1302 and 1304.

Pretty brains flying! 1305 now clear.
1306, clear. 1307, 1308, 1309, 1310 , 1311 aaand 1312 clear.
I have a bad feeling about 1313.
Not just because of the almost deafening sound that comes from inside.
The fowl smell helps too.
"The monsters always smell bad."
But this smells even worst.
Something ahead smells of.. sulfur?
I still have another grenade.
Just refilled the shotgun, I have four in chamber and eight more spare shells.

Switched the riffle clip, using the last one now.
Both pistols are still unused, so as long as there aren't more than say..

twenty, I should be fine.
Kicking the door in and.. I find myself in a blood flooded room.
Too much blood for the single corpse that lies in the middle, being eaten by one of the monsters.
That one goes down easily, so does the one that comes from the hole in the wall.
I can see all the way to the last room in this corridor.
In every room at least a couple of monsters.
I have time to reload the shotgun, so now I'm down to ten shells, total.
Next room, I moved through the holes in the wall, eight shots, next room, five since I missed a shot.
I can't miss a damn shot.
Another monster down, the last four shells are loaded.
They have stopped what ever it was they were doing and are coming my way.
Joy oh joy.
I go back to 1313, killing two more and finishing the shotgun.
Assault riffle now.
They are still coming.

I never saw so many.

Still in 1313, out of shotgun, out of riffle.
Both hand guns have fired two shots, but there are no more of them in sight.
Whatever was happening up here was in the suite, room 1319.
This time I take the corridor, handguns ready.
1314 and 1316 are empty, as I expected.
Kicking the door in, I almost scream when I see what's ahead of me.
This aren't just homeless people.
There's at least 20 bodies in here.
"They must have been collecting them."
But dead bodies don't scare me.
The portal behind them does.
It's the first time I see such a portal open.
The monsters normally arrive and the portals close immediately after, but this one is open.
"What do you see? What's there?"
Fire, all there is is fire.
All I can see is the flames burning on a skeleton paved floor, and a throne.
In the throne is a monster, just like the ones I've been killing but different.
This one is bigger, his horns are huge, his eyes are old.
Really old.
His arm is long, and his hand, dark red, filled with scars, is stretching to get me.
Fuck, the grenade I threw inside did nothing.
A fiery explosion in the middle of fire.

Ah.
The handguns are empty now, and I stab him with the knife but it won't work.
Hey, it's been a pleasure working with you, and a bigger one living with you, and a bigger on-
"Are you there?"
"ANSWER!"

-"Static. That's what I heard after, only static. There's three more hours of static in that file if you want it."
The man in a wheelchair had a small datacard in his hand, but the priest refused it:
"No thank you. I already suspected this was the case. Demons, damn fucking demons. And I was so close to retirement!"