Chapter 3: Apocalypse

The enormous pillar falling over Los Angeles didn’t hit nearly as hard as Spencer first feared it would. Even though it had no visible engines or propellers to speak of, the massive object slowed its free fall and set down somewhere in the distant dense population center. There was no loud boom, plume of dirt and debris, nor any shockwave through the earth to signal it made contact. It was the only time Spencer cursed the small mountain range between LA and Lancaster since it blocked visual confirmation of landfall.

“Is that… the meteor?” Steven asked quietly as both he and Spencer watched the distant pillar dominate the skyline.

Before Spencer could even think about how to respond to Steven’s question the pillar opened. Enormous fan-like doors near the top spread out and dark clouds began to gush out of the entrances. The clouds spread out in all directions, thinning out the further they got from the pillar. It wasn’t until the clouds grew closer that Spencer could see that the dark mass wasn’t vapor at all, but innumerable objects falling to earth. Each object was a greyish purple blob of flesh the size of a dump truck. 

Judging from the density of the cloud directly around the pillar downtown Los Angeles would have blobs striking the ground every few feet. Out past the mountains where Spencer sat in the school bus the blobs were much fewer and farther between. That didn’t mean there weren’t a lot of them. The first few rows of students hadn’t left the bus yet before blobs began impacting around them.

“Look out!” Spencer pulled Steven down as a blob struck the back of the bus.

The parked transportation vehicle rotated ninety degrees as the back half of the roof and the final six rows of seats were completely blown away. Glass and loose metal rained down on the side of the road. Pedestrians and stopped motorists screamed and scattered as more impacts happened further ahead. As soon as the bus rocked to a stop Spencer lifted his head and turned shakily to the back of the bus.

Mary, Emily, Trevor, and Marco were gone. Spencer watched numbly as blood dripped from what was left of the rearmost seats. Screams and panicked shouts echoed around Spencer’s head. It didn’t feel real. It couldn’t feel real. Everything was happening too quickly. The pod that struck the bus lurched and drew Spencer’s attention. Steam rose from its final resting point at the broken base of a tree beside the sidewalk. The sickly purple skin bubbled and hissed as something stirred within the alien-like entity.

“Spencer!” Steven shook his shoulders. “Are you okay?! We should get out of the bus, right?”

The remaining students scrambled out of the front door. The driver was nowhere to be seen. A chime sounded in Spencer’s ear and a new text box appeared above Steven’s head.

‘Skill Gacha Summoner activated. 

Calculating store prices…

Complete.

Calculating level progression…

Complete.

Calculating reward rate…

Complete.

Issuing first quest…’

The text vanished before new text took its place.

‘Purchase first five pulls:

• Reward: Class three personal protective gear.

• Sub-quest:

• Kill five mobs.

• Reward: Fifty store credits

  A notification informed Spencer that engie pulls had to be bought in sets of five. Ten credits per pull means the sub-quest reward would cover the cost of the first five pulls purchased. 

Gachas are all about buying team members and having them fight battles for you, but it looks like I can’t actually get my team members without completing the first sub-quest on my own… Spencer’s brain instantly latched onto this new information to shut out the horror of what he just witnessed behind him on the bus. What does it mean by mobs?

As if to answer his unspoken question there was a squishy crack and the fallen ball of flesh split open. A dozen skittering creatures tumbled out of the object with terrifying screeches and clicks. They were each the size of wolves, but had six legs instead of four. Each leg had long jagged claws that peeled up concrete as they dug their toes into the sidewalk. Their bodies were tight, armor like grey skin with pink muscle like flesh showing between the harder outer layer. Their heads had no visible ears or hair, but they did have two large black eyes and a long snout full of razor sharp teeth.

“What is that?!” Steven fell backwards into the aisle between the seats.

During all of the commotion the rest of the students had exited the idling bus. Outside, the freshly hatched creatures chittered briefly to one another before locking onto the closest fleeing pedestrians around them. With gleeful cries the creatures took off, leaping on the backs of people and biting their powerful jaws down on vulnerable necks. The creatures moved quickly between victims, seemingly more driven to kill than to eat anyone bleeding out on the pavement.

Spencer leapt over the chair and stumbled his way to the front of the bus. Even though the back was destroyed all of the wheels and the frame were left intact. Or at least, he hoped they were. Spencer slid into the driver’s seat and pulled the gear shift into drive. Steven crawled up next to him, breathing heavily.

“Spencer, we've got to leave!” Steven held onto the side of the driver’s seat as Spencer turned hard on the wheel and stepped down on the gas.

The engine coughed and there was a terrible sound of metal scraping against metal, but the bus began to move as Spencer cranked hard on the steering wheel and flipped the large vehicle around back towards his house. The steering wheel took a lot of force to move in either direction and the acceleration was sluggish. The front of the bus crunched loudly as they collided with the back corner of an abandoned car, but the powerful diesel engine kept them moving.

“There’s a shotgun at my house.” Spencer told his friend as he swerved around more cars, some abandoned, others weaving erratically through the chaos like they were. “If we get there we can-”

“They see us, they see us!” Steven pointed out of the open door down the street where the nearest pair of monsters locked eyes with the bus.

Spencer cursed and pressed harder on the peddle, willing the large machine to go even faster. Fortunately the bus hadn’t made it far from his stop, but Spencer knew from the speed of his pursuers that they’d never make it to his house before the monsters caught them. 

An oncoming car going recklessly fast veered around an abandoned vehicle and narrowly missed Spencer’s bus. The driver over-corrected and ended up spinning out just behind them, nearly flipping over completely. Spencer watched in the rearview as the two monsters leapt out of the way of the spinning car before turning and launching themselves through the car’s windows.

“They switched targets!” Steven’s face paled. “Whoever was driving that car is... They’re going to eat them.”

“Hold on!” Spencer warned as he cranked the wheel to turn the bus onto the road into his neighborhood.

Steven stumbled against the front row seats. Spencer felt his stomach tighten painfully as the left two tires nearly left the ground from the speed of his turn, but thankfully they made it around the bend without flipping the bus. Chaos reigned around them as they sped past more empty flesh blobs along the way. Monsters attacked homes, cars, and people as everyone fled in every direction in a blind panic. A woman darted across the street ahead of them. Spencer didn’t even have time to react before a creature leapt out after her and smashed itself against the front of the speeding bus.

The windshield shattered on impact and the creature howled in pain. It swung its clawed legs all around as it tried to free itself from the twisted metal. The claws narrowly missed Spencer’s hands. He cursed and pulled back from the steering wheel. In that brief moment the creature managed to hook one of its feet inside the wheel and incidentally yanked it to the right. Spencer grabbed the underside in an attempt to correct their trajectory without getting in range of those fearsome claws, but it was far too late.

“Hang onto something!” Spencer pulled the driver’s seat belt over himself and managed to slam it into place just as the bus struck a thick wooden telephone poll.

The rugged seat belt snapped painfully against his body as the bus came to a sudden and violent stop. Steven hadn’t had enough time to get out of the aisle so he flew by in a blur and slammed against the front dashboard. Sparks flew overhead as power lines ripped free from the transformer and fell on top of cars parked further along the curb. Live electricity zapped loudly against the cars, searing their paint as it crackled. The creature wasn’t moving at all on the steaming shattered hood. A ding sounded in Spencer’s ear.

‘Progress made: 1 out of 5 mobs slain.’

“Steven.” Spencer groaned as he painfully removed the seatbelt from his bruised chest. “I think it’s dead.”

He reached down and shook his friend. Steven didn’t move and his head was bent at an unnatural angle. Spencer felt his pulse spike as he turned Steven over.

“Hey! Hey talk to me man!”

Steven’s eyes were open and blank. Horrifyingly blank. A large bloody gash along the top of his head sent ice into Spencer’s soul. Desperate cries echoed around Spencer’s ears. It took him a long time to realize they were coming from his own lips. Inhuman noises of loss, pain, and a lack of understanding all rolled into his straining vocal chords. Shaking fingers pressed into Steven’s warm neck to confirm that there was no pulse.

Spencer felt sick, paralyzed, and more afraid than he’d ever been in his life. He wanted to sit there longer. Wanted to call for help. Wanted to place his friend somewhere safe, but the distant sounds of screams, inhuman screeches, and gunshots forced him to move. 

If you stay you can’t help anyone else. If you stay you die.

Spencer forced himself to move Steven under the front row so he was hidden from view. It was the only thing Spencer could think to do to protect the body while he was away.

“I’ll be back for you man. I promise I won’t leave you here to get eaten.” Spencer told Steven before ducking out of the bent front door.

******

The run to his house wasn’t long. He rounded the corner and felt incredibly relieved that nothing was on fire or broken on the street or any of his neighbor’s houses. Considering the time of day most people on his street would be at or driving to work right now. In the distance, the eerie sound of an air raid siren began its rhythmic rise and fall. The haunting siren mixed with the numerous columns of smoke, monstrous screams, and periodic gunshots perfectly encapsulating the absolute hell that the world had suddenly turned into. 

Spencer wanted to throw up. The blood pounding in his head had only grown stronger as chaos reigned around him. His home town was being torn apart by creatures that shouldn’t exist. It would be so easy to let the despair overwhelm him. To curl up in a ball and wait for the end to come for him.

Advice his dad once gave him surfaced in his mind. “You could spend forever worrying about everything you can’t control. Focus on what you can control and do that. You can overcome any obstacle that way.”

Of course this phrase was given as business advice, but it felt appropriate here. Spencer pushed the fear as far back as he could in his mind as he focused on sprinting the last hundred feet to his front door.

Get inside. Get a weapon. Get inside. Get a weapon. Spencer repeated those words over and over again as he ran.

He made it halfway when one of the windows along the top floor of a house across the street shattered into a million pieces. A hellhound, (that’s what Spencer decided to call them given their dog-like features), landed heavily in the front yard. From the sounds coming from the now broken window there was more than one monster inside of that house. The one in the front yard appeared to only be stunned as it writhed on the grass and shook its head angrily.

Spencer sucked in a panicked breath. He could try to slow down and hope he evades notice or he could run. 

Fear chose the second option. 

He made it all the way up his walkway before the hellhound across the street noticed his presence. There was a clicking growl followed by a horrific shriek. Spencer forced himself to remain focused as he pulled his keys from his pocket and jammed the right key into his lock. The second the deadbolt clicked open Spencer threw himself through the door. He slammed it shut with all of his strength but didn’t bother to turn the lock. From what he’d seen of these creature’s strength, the measly wood door wouldn’t stop them even if it was locked.

His legs burned as Spencer made the last sprint to his kitchen. Splintering wood shot across the front room while Spencer launched himself over the granite counters separating the kitchen from the living room. Spencer fell hard onto the tiled floors but he ignored the pain in his already bruised ribs to frantically open the cupboard under the sink. The floor shook as the hellhound sprinted into the room. 

The combination of speed and blood slick claws caused the creature to slip on the smooth flooring. The creature fell onto its stomach and collided clumsily with the sectional on the other side of the kitchen counters. It would have been comical if the monster wasn’t here to brutally murder Spencer in his own house. Spencer’s hands shook horribly as he loaded up three slug shells into his father’s shotgun. The sound of the pump racking a round caused the hellhound to shriek and leap over the granite top. 

Spencer spun around, planting his back against the slick tile, and pushed off along the floor. The barrel of the gun lifted up to match the oncoming monster as Spencer slid backwards in the same direction. The shotgun kicked heavily into Spencer’s shoulder and a slug went straight through the top hellhound’s mouth. Black blood erupted out with tremendous force as the kitchen and ceiling were splattered thoroughly. The body fell next to Spencer with a heavy thump and a ding sounded in his ears.

‘Progress made: 2 out of 5 mobs slain.’