She slammed the door behind us just as something bashed angrily on the other side. She couldn't help but scream hysterically. "What the hell is going on?"
I had no answer for her.
I helped her force the door shut, and I locked it with a relieved sigh. "I have no idea, but we can hole up here until… until the police do something." The door to my apartment was solid and sturdy, containing a heavy sheet of metal as a form of security most campus houses shared. I had no windows on the first floor; instead, stairs went straight up to my apartment on the second floor. Never was I more thankful for my cramped brick-and-metal entryway.
Dashing upstairs and closing and locking the door to the stairwell, we took refuge in my bedroom and turned on my small television.
Static. There was only static.
Our cellphones didn't work, either, and the Internet was out…
It was then we really started to think we were screwed.
Deciding to turn off the lights so as to avoid drawing attention to our location, we sat and peered out the windows into the night.
Clouds covered the moon. Trees swayed in chilly autumn winds. Nothing living seemed to move…
"There!" she whispered, pointing down the street.
I saw nothing.
"It was under the streetlight for just a second…" she said, trembling as she clung to my arm.
I had to confess, despite the terrible things happening, part of me was still happy… "Wait, I saw something under a streetlight, too. And when the cops passed, and the lights -"
The lights. Something had brushed past me in the dark, and something had pounded on our door just as we'd gotten inside… but I had no porch light.
Intently, I stared at the closest streetlight until it happened.
Something horrible and twisted shambled past, visible only under the strongest part of the streetlight's glow. It was gone almost as soon as I realized I was really seeing something.
"Do you smell that?" my date asked, almost at the same time that I realized we'd made a terrible mistake in turning off all the lights.
In the very dim orange glow from the streetlights outside, I noticed a dark stain on the carpet near my roommate's bed. What if one of those things had already gotten inside here before we'd arrived? I jumped up and flipped all the lights on, illuminating each room in the apartment with a heart-freezing moment of terror.
The last light, the one in the kitchen, finally revealed it. It'd been on the other side of the apartment from us, and we'd stayed quiet, but… now it knew we were there. It came for me with a demonic and wholly inhuman grin.
I shouted, ran for the front door, and pulled my date through as she came to meet me. I knew what these things were, now, and I knew we were doomed… but I still managed to grab the emergency flashlight from the front staircase.
We burst forth from the heavy door, shoving the creature there aside, and I hesitated only long enough to shine my flashlight at it and get a good look.
I'd guessed right.
We took off running into the night, but screams were already ringing out from multiple nearby streets. We could seek shelter, seek food, seek safety, but… from the horrors I'd seen, I knew there was nowhere to hide.
That, and it wasn't cloudy at all. From out here, we could better see the reflected glow from the city's lights. There was no Moon, not because of clouds, but because something massive was blocking out the entire sky. The dim twinkles I'd mistaken for stars were in fact the city's own light reflected from some sort of massive structure arching over us from horizon to horizon. Not a ship, not a building… it seemed more like… a leg…
But none of that mattered, after what I already knew. I didn't have the heart to tell my date as we picked a basement to huddle in, but we'd seen the creature pursuing us before.
It had followed us from the party.
It was - or had been - Jen.
Twisted, bloody, and visible only in direct light… but it was her, no doubt, without any trace of humanity left within.