The Caterpillarian

Chapter 13

I had my sword, Alison had her claws, her incredible agility, and her ability to fly, and Jasper had his mask. We also had Beehave by our side to light our way. Would these tools be enough to defeat The Caterpillarian? I looked at my games console, imagining the character in my game confronting the last boss. As was typical of a survival horror game, the protagonist would probably be low on ammo and healing items. I remembered back to the last survival horror game I played. It was called Hushed Hillock, and I played it on hard difficulty. The last boss had fallen to my shotgun when I blasted its head off with the final shell. I had zero healing items left, having used them all in the fight. It was probably my greatest gaming accomplishment up to this point. If I could do that, I could do this. Though, there were no save points in real life.

But it was fine. With a little preparation time, we'd be ready to take on The Caterpillaria—

My eyes had caught sight of a green, red and yellow ooze pouring through my window. It formed a puddle on the floor and slowly began to expand as more and more seeped through. Was this The Caterpillarian? It had to be.

"What's that?" Jasper asked, slow on the uptake as usual.

"It's The Caterpillarian, obviously," Alison said, the volume of her voice stunted by fear.

The three of us backed off as my entire carpet became consumed in gunk. When my back met the wall, I decided to open my door. We stepped into the hallway, but the slime began to escape with us.

How were we supposed to defeat something like this? It was basically sludge.

But then it began to mould into something like it was playdoh. It rose higher and higher, filling out my entire door frame. Those horrifying red eyes, terrible fangs and creepy antennas formed on its face.

It was The Caterpillarian in its full form, looking just as it had on top of my roof. I could feel its warm breath over my sweaty skin, and I could hear it in my ears. At a distance, it had scared me, but being this close truly amplified how terrifying it was. Those eyes were as big as our heads and I could see my reflection staring back; the horror on my face was clear to see. Its fangs were as long as my arms. I was as scared as I'd been the entire day. How was I going to use my sword against this thing when I could barely keep it still from shaking? I wanted to check on my friends to see if they were wimping out as much as I was, but I didn't dare look away.

And it was a good thing I didn't. The Caterpillarian's jaws opened, revealing many more razor-sharp teeth, strands of saliva connecting them. I instinctively shoved my arm into Alison, knocking her and Jasper to the left, while I fell with them. The Caterpillarian's fangs whizzed past me, as I and my friends thumped to the floor in a heap. The creature turned to us, launching towards us again. But this time, I swung my sword, and with a clang and a scrape, the blade connected with a fang, knocking its head slightly to the side.

I'd fought back and something had happened. Even if I'd only managed to deflect its fang away, it gave me hope. We could defeat this thing. It would take infinitely more than one strike, obviously, but at least I knew we could fight back.

Despite that, there was only one thing I wanted to do right now.

"Run!" I shouted simply, pushing my friends into my parents' bedroom.

We jumped onto the bed, moving unsteadily over it until we were back on the ground. I turned just in time to see our enemy slither into the room, its entire form stretching up to the roof.

"Duck!" I ordered as soon as its mouth had opened again.

It flew over us, its body flopping onto the bed, the springs creaking loudly. The bed supported its elongated body, meaning it hadn't landed on top of us, crushing us to death. Bathed in its shadow, we army crawled under the bed. We slipped out the other side. Together, we managed to squeeze between the door frame and its bulging tail, the three of us flopping out into the hallway again. I took this opportunity to plunge my sword into its tail. I considered lopping it off, but it was so thick, that there was no way it would've worked. It writhed and screamed a scream I can only describe as a thousand cats getting their tails trapped in a door. With quite a struggle, I retracted the sword, green blood spouting from its tail. It slithered back inside the bedroom. Booming noises like thunder came from inside and the floor quaked. The head of our enemy slinked out of the doorway. It had managed to turn its enormous body around in such a small space. It was shockingly agile for something so huge.