Black Friday: Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Prize

The deity consumes the energies projected from the building below. Krumerixan feels a spell being cast from his master. The power engulfs the Merry Mart and spills into the parking lot. The humans below go crazy with bloodlust and fear. The alien monsters inside do as well. Up until now they were only attacking humans, but now the ice beast snatches a hawk-like humanoid from the sky. It shatters into a hundred frozen pieces when it lands.

The human alliances crumble as they all turn on each other. The shootout in sporting goods doesn't last long. The survivors neglect reloading in favor of running at each other while screaming and brandishing the closest weapon with a blade. The teenagers on skateboards beat each other senseless with their previous hit-and-run tactics abandoned. Everyone is on the attack and no one is on any side other than their own. Chaos reigns within and without.

Police sirens arrive. The two cop cars park in the street. Humans infected by the dark being's spell stop attacking each other to charge the cops like zombies in a video game. One police officer shoots into the charging crowd. "Hold your fire!" The other officers don't listen. They all fire while the one in charge tries to regain control. It doesn't matter as the crowd overtakes them. One of them gets a call out for backup as the mass of people tears the four cops apart.

The numbers within the store dwindle rapidly. A Cyclops falls to the icy stare of a Roc, the Roc falls to a woman's arrow,  a male teenager stabs the woman in the heart, a shelf is pushed over by a powerfully built man to crush the teen, and on and on the chain reaction of deaths continue.

Krumerixan's master retracts back through the portal with its feeding complete. There are still trace amounts of energy within, but the deity is not one to lick the plate clean. With his exit the spell of bloodlust is broken. There are two beings left inside. Krumerixan descends to the front door to await the final victor and present their prize.

The last monster is a thin blue skinned terror with purple glowing eyes that have black clouds swirling around them. Its main weapon paralyzes the opposition in place while it gouges the helpless victim with the razor sharp claws at the end of its three fingers. In the other corner we have a young girl in a white blood stained dress who is clutching a stuffed unicorn. Her hands are slick with blood just as blood drips off the claws of the terror. She sobs into the stuffed animal while the blue skinned monster stalks toward her.

She looks over her shoulder with a look of anger at the monster. The monster spreads its arms wide to make a more intimidating presence. Its mouth opens wide to wail a song of paralysis with the black smoke rotating faster around the eyes. The girl stands then runs toward the monster. She jumps at the monster's face. The terror tries to catch the girl with it's claws, but it is too slow. The girl jams the stuffed unicorn deep down the monster's throat. The beast tries to cough it up while flailing its arms at any shelf it can reach to steady itself. The girl hops down and walks away. The terror chokes to death. Don't mess with the girl hugging the stuffed unicorn. Especially not on Black Friday.

Krumerixan greets her, "Congratulations. You are the last survivor. You will accompany me to my realm."

"But I wanna go home."

"This will be your new home."

"But you said I could go home."

"The message said you could leave with your life, it did not say where. You can come with me, or stay and die. It matters not to me little girl."

She pulls out a knife and attempts to stab Krumerixan, but he is not fully in this dimension so it does no damage. "You cannot harm me. Choose now. Stay or go."

She puts her hand up as if expecting Krumerixan to take it. He does not. He opens the portal instead. They walk through it together.

THE END

I had forgotten how much fun it is to write something new since I have been focusing on rewrites and edits for the novel. I really needed to get this out. I hope you all enjoyed this journey into the perils of Black Friday and hope you all stayed safe while shopping on this day after Thanksgiving. Weeeeeee