Nightfall

I felt something slide down my arm and froze.

Jude turned to me. “What?”

“Something brushed my arm,” I said, as I shook it off, and found saliva dripping down from the branch I was under. I looked up and the ugly creature of before was there. The centipede. I gulped and stepped back trying not to make any sudden moves. It had followed us and we were too far for help now.

I tapped Jude’s shoulder.

“What the fuck now!” he said as I pointed above us.

Bartholomew glanced up and started to quake.

“That is one ugly mother fucker,” Jude muttered aiming the gun at its belly but it was faster skittering down the black trunk and crashing into Jude. The thing bit down and Jude wailed as black liquid coated the thing’s mouth. I didn’t need to be told anything. One look and I knew the thing was drinking Jude dry of fluids. Jude had the gun though, all I had was a tire iron. It would have to be enough to save the bastard.

I swung at the centipede’s head and managed to clip a few flowers off. Their nectar oozed onto Jude, making his skin boil and getting into his bite widening the hole for the monster to keep sucking. Jude’s screams were now whimpers, and his thrashing had become incessant body wiggling to the centipede. He was losing strength fast. The gun was nowhere to be found in this darkness. Tweedle had lost it and tweedle dum was too busy gawking at the scene to find it or any weapon.

We could be next and no he was egging the beast on in some twisted way. I squeezed my eyes shut, backing up from the grisly sight, and throwing my arms up around the tree the centipede had come from. There had to be something! As I searched Jude went from a whimpering mess to an almost silent corpse. My time was almost up! I had to hurry. My hands slid over something big and spindly.

“Ouch!” I said retreating, before feeling out what it was.

It seemed like a branch with a large spindly flower. Said flower was wrapped all around the branch and diverted to the tree. It was my only choice. I wiggled the branch free of others before tugging as hard as I could on it and twisting, I heard a snap and quickly managed to palm the branch. Careful of the spindly plant. I swung it through the air once and nodded when it didn’t break. It would do.

Heading back, I swung the branch and hoped the spindly plant was enough to knock the centipede off Jude. The branch sailed and the spindly plant hit the centipede, only to open up and bury itself within the monster making it cry. It unfurled from the branch and tree standing to become a spindly hedgehog, octopus, and spindly plant monster. It made short work of the centipede curling its tentacles around the bug and lifting it off Jude. The wail it let out was horrific.

Bart nearly fainted as the monster bit at and ate the other monster. The centipede swung viciously from its mauls while the thing started to suck the bug out of the carapace. Quickly, I turned to Jude and lifted the pale jerk wad up handing him to Bart, who took him, and we ran for the nearest lights. The buzzing sound increased around us as we ran. The soft tap tap tap of a gun going off alerted me to someone fighting, but I gave it no mind. Jude was possibly dying and we were possibly being hunted.

“Guys! Wait for me!” came Lana’s exhausted voice. Bart stopped in his tracks and I crashed into him.

“Don’t stop!” I wheezed.

Lana caught up to us and we were running again toward an entrance. The sound of a wolf’s howl sounded not too far away and I paused for a minute. We were almost to an entrance. The entrance was shut closed and guarded by an electric password. Seeing nothing for it, I hacked into the small electric pad and pried the lid off the connecting wires. Using a guesstimate based on the unit of the late computer system I hotwired in a gig a few months back, I rewired the doors to let us through and prayed.

The doors slid open, and we walked through, to face an angry squad of men. They were dressed like engineers and pilots and we were intruding on something. Lana and Bart glanced at me and I sighed stepping up. I was the leader, right?

“H-hi? M-my c-crew a-and I-I c-come f-from t-the m-main b-building and are lost. W-we were w-won-wondering if any of you could…” I began saying.

The doors slid open and Andromeda walked in tired and dirty. She faced us angrily but decided to help us out as she said. “I’ve been looking all over for you crew 43. Your orders were askew. We were supposed to meet in the outpost north of here.”

I played along and nodded. “Very well. We’ll be on our way.”

Lana and Bart looked confused but I urged them forwards and followed Andromeda who had anthropomorphized into a wolf again. By now I was tired and dirty and just wanted dinner which probably ended a few hours ago. Twiddle dee, Twiddle dumb and Twiddle dumber were all accounted for and Andromeda was leading us back to the settlement. I wanted to scream at my crew for their stupidity but not right then. I just wanted food right now.

We followed Andromeda who marched us up to a side entrance where Reynolds was waiting. The light refracted off his glasses as he stared at us.

“It seems some rules have to be established. Andromeda take Jude to the med bay and get him a cure as fast as possible.” He turned to us again. “The blood drinker you met is one of the most dangerous animals on this planet, for the sole reason, that it transforms people into vampires like it. Your friend might wake up with a hunger for blood, if so, he’ll have to be put down like an animal.”

My eyes widened as Reynolds left. I hoped Jude would be fine. The bottom had started to fall out.