The fog descended unnaturally fast, obscuring everyone in a matter of seconds. It was thick and wet and made it difficult to see more than a few feet in front, even with the flash lights on.
We were only a few blocks from our destination so we went against our better judgement and continued forward, one of the children began to cry and their mother pulled them close in an effort to calm down the frightened child.
“Shhh… it’ll be alright, now shhh…”
It worked and the kid calmed down, leaving an earie silence that permeated our entire surroundings.
The air felt thick, but not from the fog. It was as if we could sense in the air that something was moving around us just out of sight.
We kept moving, the heavy silence following us. No matter what was hiding out there we still had to make it back to our shelter before the doors closed for the night. If we didn’t make it there in time we would have to quickly find another safe place before night came in earnest. The chance that would happen was miniscule, so much so that if they failed to arrive on time they would most likely not survive the night.
Looking at his watch, Mazer saw that they had only a little bit of time left, but enough to get back which caused him to relax slightly. As long as there wasn’t anything to slow them down in the next few blocks they’d be home free.
He sighed.
This resupply mission was fucked from the beginning. They set off with a dozen gatherers, but now only a quarter of the originals remained. They did find a few survivors as well, but not enough to make up for the ones lost. That being the case, Mazer was entirely on edge for most of the mission. He was looking forward to get indoors and out of this horror story of apocalyptic scale.
Only one block away now.
Mazer stopped the group right before the corner that would lead to their safe haven and took a peak around it. Slowly, he rounded the corner with his head; just enough to poke it out, and was met with two large black eyes staring back at him. That moment stretched into an eternity of moments, and while Mazer was stunned, the tongue covered in spikes leapt out from the sharp grinned mouth that belonged to those large black eyes. In that infinity of moments for Mazer, it only took a single one for the tongue to wrap around his neck, dig in with spikes, and be pulled toward the now gaping mouth.
Without being able to even process what just happened, Mazer’s head was crushed in an explosion of bone, blood, and brain matter. His headless corpse collapsed, twitching as the remaining blood being pumped through his body shot out from the bloody remains of his neck.
The ones behind Mazer that saw close up what happened began to scream in terror and tried to run away, or around towards the safety of that large brick building they were promised.
None of them made it more than 20 feet.
