The Farthest Door

Chapter-2: A Hecatomb of Sheep

Jake is sitting on a park bench fiddling with his computer. There are a lot of students in the park. Some seem to be playing baseball, while others are focused on their work and chatting with their peer group. Jake has put on headphones and is listening to some instrumental music as he uses his laptop. Jake is working on some kind of 3D physics project. His screen has a bunch of highlighted text on the left side and bouncing objects on the right. The day is as quiet and peaceful as any other. Jake finished his work, closed his eyes and took off his headphones. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. The students had gathered around in a large circle in the distance. Initially Jake thought that they were there to look at the baseball game and cheer for their player of choice, but now he could hear them. Among the indistinct chatter, he could only make out a couple of voices.

Student 1:

"Eh, who made this thing? Whoever made it do a good job on the animatronic's skin, looks rather real, just try not to make it, you know, blue."

Student 2:

"Isn't that an abomination!"

Jake starts walking towards the parliament of judgemental owls. As he approached the crowd, he could see a creature of some sort. He suspected it to be someone's robotics with fake skin applied on top. Students did that sometimes to jumpscare people, but as he got closer it didn't quite feel as fake.

The creature had 2 hindlimbs and 4 forelimbs. The creature had a rather tall stature at approximately 7 feet tall. It didn't have a mouth. It had human-like eyes and a slightly larger cranium. It was wearing white robes which covered almost its whole body except for its hands, feet and face. It had minute chainmail-like fabric weaved onto its skin everywhere except its cranium. It looked rather slim and light for something of its stature.

Everyone knew that something this detailed was out-of-reach of any student's building capacity, but they had no other way to explain what they were seeing, so the confused rambling of the crowd continued as they tried to comprehend what they were seeing.

From around the corner another one of the creatures which looked quite like it but not exactly walked around the corner into the park. The crowd split as the second creature approached the first. The second one was carrying two instruments. The second one gave one to the first creature and kept one for himself. They quietly kept them inside their robes.

The creatures looked in opposite directions and stood back-to-back. They started walking away from the centre of the circle and towards the students. Jake started to take a few steps back instinctively, as did a handful of others. The creatures reached out for one student each and kept their palms on their cheeks. Initially, they were amused as they assumed that what they were seeing was just excellent craftsmanship.

At a moment's notice, both the students started screaming. The indistinct chatter stopped in an instant. Everyone took steps back. Then the creatures let go of the students in perfect synchronization. As they fell to the ground, one could see that their cheeks were no more. Where once they had cheeks, now they had nothing, people could see their slightly corroded teeth and a layer of sticky substance on the periphery of their corroded faces. As they hit the ground everyone started to run.

There was a stampede of people, Jake was ahead of the wave. The creatures followed but they could only walk so fast, it seemed as though they couldn't run.

Jake left the park but stayed near the gate. As the last student left the park, Jake shut the gate and fixed a padlock on the gate that was usually used to keep the park closed at night. As he was facing the gate and fixing the padlock, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He elbowed whoever was behind him. He turned around and saw Lucy.