The last man to stumble out of the stall had a huge thing that appeared to be a slimy and wet potato sack over his head. It stretched into the air above him by about two feet. Finally, the man dropped to the ground. The slug looking monster hit the ground too, but didn't detach. Everyone in the bathroom was now climbing over each other to get out first. For the rest of us who hadn't seen this creature before, we were frozen in place, stunned in fear. The creature finally moved away from the downed man. His head had been as neatly and cleanly removed as all the others. Whatever this thing was, it was draining people. And just as the people had warned us already, this thing divided. As if it swallowed a head whole, just to crap it out the back end, along with another monster. Now, both monsters looked to us. The most horrifying thing about them, which the others apparently failed to mention, was the fact that the human heads they consumed became the new heads. Human faces with dead eyes stared back at us as they moved in for their next meal. We had seen enough. Time for flight. Team One dashed out of the bathroom right along with everyone else now.
The floor was crawling with those things. Giant, human faced, slug monsters. Lucky for us, they weren't exactly swift. They oozed and writhed on their slimy bellies in a horde, all hungry for more. I took a swing at them with the club. I only felt slightly bad about whacking at familiar faces. Whatever these things were, they clearly weren't the people I used to know.
The stream of flashlights bounced across the room as we ran. "Keep them forward!" I shouted, "clear the path!" Everyone tried to steady the beam of their flashlight, collecting all the light ahead. The slugs seeped out of the way to reclaim the dark.
We crashed through the door to the stairwell, only to find this one was flooded with those things. Some even fell from above us to the water below. We would have to try another route. We backtracked and raced to another stairwell. This one still had the gross slugs, but not nearly as many. We fought past the ones above, utilizing our weapons as much as our lights.
When we finally stepped out into the third floor, we could see that things here were already messy. Some people were running around with slugs over their heads, just to fall and go still. Others were climbing desks, using anything as a weapon to keep these things away.
Without realizing one was behind me, I tripped over backward, landing hard on my rear. In a panic, I did a quick crab crawl to get away. When the slug turned to face me, that's when I noticed that this thing had the face of poor Steven. The creature unhinged its jaw and started to close the distance between us.
Randall didn't hesitate. He sidestepped and brought the blade he carried down hard over Steven's head. It sliced clean through. I let out a sigh of relief. He reached a hand down and helped me to my feet. I was just about to thank him when we both noticed the slug still moving. The head of the creature regenerated a body behind it. Meanwhile, the separate body regenerated its own new head. One became two. That's not good.
"Not like this!" Daniel had one of the slug creatures biting his calf. He used his knife to stab at the thing's face frantically.
Bea screamed and backed against a wall, slashing wildly with her letter opener in every direction.
"There's too many of them!" Randall yelled, "We can't kill them!"
I scanned the chaotic scene around us. For some reason, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. All the carnage. All the screams. All the death and destruction. Everything was just slowing down around me. Everything seemed so hopeless. How are we supposed to survive this? What could we do? As far as fight or flight was concerned, the fight was already lost. Nothing we did to these things seemed to slow them down. Every time one of them was injured, it would simply divide. The more of us we lost, the more they gained. It was a losing battle, and we were all doomed.
Which means all that was left was flight. All we could do was run. One thing we had over them was speed. I ran to Bea and grabbed her free arm, "The roof!" I shouted to her, "Come on!" We collected Daniel and Randall in the middle of their struggles to run and join us.
We made a mad dash for the stairwell. Jumping over the slug creatures and fighting our way through where we could. There was too much chaos going on around us for us to collect each and every other person. This was a war zone, and all we could really do was just try to get out. We got through the metal door and didn't even bother to try to block it afterward. We simply ran as fast as our legs would take us up the stairs towards the door for the roof.
We broke out of the building and were instantly drenched by the downpour. Our shoes slapped against the wet roof below our feet as we continued to run all the way to the edge of the building. I looked back now to see if we were followed. We weren't. For now, we appeared to be safe.
Randall collapsed onto his hands and knees to throw up. Frankly, I didn't blame him at all. If I had anything in my stomach, I probably would have joined him. Daniel ran clear to the edge to the waist-high wall. He peered over the edge. I don't know if he was considering jumping or not. As I mulled it over in my head, I would think jumping to be the better option as opposed to the alternative.
There was a low hum beyond the sound of the rain. The very air itself seemed to vibrate around me. This storm was something like I'd never seen before. How could it possibly rain so much? Did the clouds ever run out of water? I looked up at the sky, squinting as the raindrops pelted my face. The clouds were darker than I had ever seen them. They simply didn't look right. I tried to shield my eyes from the spray to get a better look. It was less like clouds above and more like some sort of solid back mass that had a dark grey mist around it. It was as if I was staring into a void.
"What is that?" Bea was next to me. Daniel and Randall had come to join us.
"Look." Randall pointed at something in the distance. Those slugs were falling from the sky. From whatever that thing was in the sky. They fell onto buildings or into the street. This is where they came from. "Is that thing.. an aircraft of some kind?"
"Well, I'll be damned..." Daniel shook his head. "It's a full-scale invasion."
"Aliens." I let out a long groan. "Can it possibly get any worse?"
