Creatures

Part 4: Thud

After a while we had found some pretty interesting things in the entries. Each journal was themed with an aspect of the creature's lives. There was a journal about their creation, behavior, diet, and responses to different experiments. We found out that the creatures were created with altered DNA from humans, other primates and a few other less common animals. The overall goal of the project is pretty unclear but there are mentions of these creature becoming second to humans and stuff like that. So basically there could have possibly been an invasion of these things. I'm glad that was avoided.

"So the growling and shrieking we heard," Kate says while looking at her journal. "That's their way of communicating, the growling is their common speaking and it sounds like the shrieking was more of an attack sound, like how a lion would roar when attacking its prey. The book says : We have a translator coming to camp in a week. But there are no more entries, this is the last one."

"Yeah well look at this!" Riley interjects while her bright eyes are focused on the looping handwriting of the diet journal. "Turns out the creatures used to eat some sort of pellets that were designed by some sort of professeur, Professeur J.Heigemeir-Larson."

"Tara and I saw those pellets in the hall to the office!" Alex realises giving me a look. She then nods for Riley to continue.

"Then they started introducing them to new foods, here I'll just read it: Creatures have successfully adapted to common vegetables... or in the next one, Creatures have taken extremely well to having meat in their diets. And after that they say that the creatures want more meat than they are providing them. It takes a turn in the last entry. We have had a few incidents with the creatures lashing out at our team. Victor Canteer is currently recovering from an attack during the creature's last feeding. They now recognize us as living meat such as the other animals they have been hunting. Controlling these outbursts is now our number one priority."

"So the creatures must have turned against the research team and that's how it ended." I theorize. After a moment of silent thought we all return to the journals. This information is great and all, but it doesn't really do anything to help us get out of here.

"Guys!" Alex exclaims with a big grin stretched across her face. Our heads immediately snap to her direction. "This is something good! It says-"

Thud. All of us jump at the sudden abrupt sound. Alex immediately drops the journal as she gets up and looks out the window.

"They're throwing themselves at the door!" She yells shocked. Just as we were closing our journals a slap echoes through the air. I look up to see a white hand with slightly webbed fingers and long nails pressed against the window in front of me. I stumble back with a shriek and quickly move into a standing position while staring at the window in shock. It's like being back in the forest again except now we have nowhere to run. If the creatures get in we're trapped, even worse, how are we supposed to get out if we're surrounded?

I join Alex at the other window and watch with her as one of the creatures starts running full speed before launching into the air and making contact with the door. Thud. The impact shakes the whole wall and floor area around the door. The door may be sturdy, but it's too old to withstand this for long.

"They are trying to get in. Tara hold the door! Riley and Kate, go secure whatever other windows are in this place." Alex directs. I quickly push against the door with my arms, hoping it would be enough to help the lock hold. Thud. Kate rushes into the kitchen and closes the shutters on the window. Riley is close behind her carrying a small hammer and bag of rusted nails.

"I found these in the closet earlier," she says while securing the shutters. Thud. The two of them move on to the two windows in the living area. As they work the creatures don't stop attacking the door. I feel the shock of every hit in my arms. It starts in my wrists and travels all the way to my shoulder blades.

"There is a big window in the bedroom that has no shutters." Kate exclaims. "And there are several creatures outside it. They keep scratching their creepy nails on the glass. I don't now how long its gonna hold." Thud.

"Grab something to defend yourself and try to hold them off." Alex orders again. Some people may think she's bossy, but in this moment her controlling attitude was the only thing keeping us together. Kate nods and grabs some stuff out of the closet before heading off to the bedroom with Riley. Thud.

I turn around and lean all my weight on the thick wooden door behind me, digging my heels into the creaky floor and pressing my back against the rough wood to try and stay strong. I can feel the old rusted knob digging into my side as the door threatens to open. Thud. Another hit. There are too many of them, way too many for four teenagers to fend off. Thud. I look to my left at Alex, she looks nervous and that never happens, even jumping as each of the things launch themselves at the cabin. Alex has always been the brave one, I have only seen her let her guard down a few times in my life, and I guess this is one of them. Thud. Thud. The things keep throwing themselves at the door, each hit rattling the hinges and making my heart skip a beat, I can feel every hit through the wood. Thud. Whatever these things are, they aren't normal, and they're strong, vicious and out to kill. Thud. They show no intentions of stopping, and there is no way we can outlast them. Crack. The door is giving out, it's only going to last a matter of seconds. I can feel the exact spot where the wood is splintering. Thud. Crack.

"Alex it's gonna go!" I yell while trying to hold the door back with all my might. I brace myself to be the one thing holding the door upright on the next hit. Through my curtain of focus I hear shattering glass and a harmony of pained human screams mixed with the sharp battle cries of the creatures. I must hold the door, our only chance at surviving depends on me holding the door. But despite my mental and physical efforts, the hit comes. Thud. And with it comes the door. I don't get a chance to process what happening. One second I was against the door, and the next thing I know, the door is on top of me. The room erupts with chaos; screams, growls and sounds of everything falling apart.

I start trying to wriggle my way out from under the door and after a minute or two of dodging debris I am almost all the way out. But the next thing that is fired in my direction is something I couldn't avoid. The body of the creature flies towards me faster than I have time to react. I am launched backwards with the creature on top of me until I feel my head make contact with whatever hard surface is behind me. After impact, I find myself lying on my side, and I think I'm sinking through something. But at the same time it feels like I'm on a teeter totter. I can see Alex on the other side of the room swinging something that looks like a baseball bat at the swarm of creatures that's engulfing her. That's all I see, before my teeter totter lulls me to sleep.