The door swung open with speed slamming into the wall. The collision echoed through the large empty marble corridor. The ground was covered in gore. Lifeless bodies in contorted positions. Faces tainted by their final moments of pain and fear. Intestines snaking out of spear wounds. One crawler in pajama pants, no shirt, stared glassy eyed at his arm three feet away, fingers reaching for the other hand as if to reattach to the body. Around them, was a pond of shiny red made even more macabre by the silence. No living monster nor human in sight.
Cornelius stood in the doorway, not stepping beyond the threshold into the hallway. “In large population centers like New York City, the starter monsters are always a little better equipped than sparse population areas. They call it the baptism of fire. Thins the herd quickly but the survivors tend to come out better prepared for the floors to come.” There was sadness in his eyes. “Good luck. I’ll see you soon.”
The door slammed shut.
I stood unmoving in the thin pool of blood. The pigeons dipped their wingtips in the blood tracing runic patterns in their feathers. After a minute of silence they seemed to be satisfied. “Let’s go, Carol. This way.” They took to the air heading north on the map.
Tip-toeing through death, avoiding bodies and sheared off parts, I followed but not before prying an intact spear from the dead grip of a legionnaire weasel. My steps squeaked leaving bloody footprints for a good fifty feet.
The pigeons had gotten a good lead ahead of me, so I began sprinting to catch up. The rush of still air flowed passed my body as I accelerated beyond my personal bests. The effortless drive of a runner’s high filled my body as I reveled in the speed. The wings on my feet fluttered, I felt the power coursing through my arms and pumping legs with each step light step. My lungs felt no strain. It was as if I was taking a gentle stroll enwrapped in a euphoric freedom. I closed my eyes briefly soaking it in. By the time I opened the pigeons were no where in sight until I looked behind me. They struggled to catch up. I stopped and waited not breathing heavy at all.
Thirty feet away, the spokespigeon yelled, “you move like the wind, but perhaps take heed of the monster on your left crawling down the column.”
Crawling down the wall headfirst was a two-foot-tall humanoid cockroach. It wore ripped jeans and nothing else, two sets of arm scurried rapidly down the column while in a thick obnoxious accent it kept saying, “hey, I’m walkin’ here-a!” The shiny brown humped shell back flickered briefly divulging useless wings. Surrounding us, more of the creatures descended from the other columns.
“I’mma walking heya!”
“I’m walken heeyah!”
“Excuse me, madam, you seem to be in the way of our stroll.”
“None of your shit, Reginald. Stick to the line!”
“Oh, dear me. That is to say, we are diligently walking here.”
I backed away to the center of the hallway. The AI excitably began to speak.
Cockoid. Level 3.
What do you get when you mix a human with a cockroach? A poorly named monster since nobody double-checked the unpaid intern’s work. Cockoids tend to travel in packs, mainly because I thought that would make this fight more exciting and after a nuclear holocaust they had a real shot of being the next dominant species. Too bad that’s not how the world ended. And if it wasn’t clear, it’s me, I’m the unpaid intern.
As the cockoids crawled to the floor they stood erect on their bottom two feet, four arms at their sides. Mandibles chittered; their beady yellow eyes were ravenous. I was completely encircled. There must have been thirty of them. I clutched the spear with both hands, knuckles white.
Three cockoids plunged from the shadow of the ceiling, mandibles wide, sharp teeth anticipating a meal. They fell in slowmotion, or rather my perception and speed made it seem like they were falling slowly.
Despite my advantage I was still frozen in indecision. Useless.
Shooting diagonally up from the ground, a single pigeon hurtled towards the descending monsters. Brow furrowed, determination set, with its one steel wing it cut through the waist of the first coccoid then quickly cutoff the heads of the next two. Green blood exploded from disassembling bodies raining down on us all.
Casually walking through the front lines of bug creatures was the spokespigeon. “I believe that merits a biscuit,” it said.
Enraged, the rest of them attacked. They lunged. I casually stepped aside avoiding five but a sixth with razor claws cut through my back shredding skin. While screaming I swung the spear like a bat connecting with its torso. Another ran at me from the left side. A blur of gray descended from above like a small meteor. The fat pigeon, tucked into a ball crashed into its head, bug parts flew everywhere.”
“Who’s Gallagher and what’s a smash-o-matic?” The Spokespigeon asked now perched upon my right shoulder.
Then a couple things happened one after another.