RUN by Ludvig Nilsson

 

It’s fear you never knew someone could feel. A chill down to your core and limbs trembling so bad you can’t even open the car door and run. The sight is unbelievable, too inhumane for the brain to process. It can only take fragments to make sense of, like its familiar reptile-like texture, surely tough and borderline indestructible. If you touched it, it would likely not feel a thing. In the same way you can shave a horse’s hoof like it’s wood, attach a shoe with nails and a hammer. Painless, like it’s not really alive. Its legs look like giant arrows, and they’re big enough to be dull to the touch but deadly if they pierced you. It would need a stabilizing surface or adhesion to be able to climb like that too, to cling to the fence that way. It's otherworldly how it’s challenging gravity, considering the size of it.

“Catch the game last night?”

You snap your head around. “What?”

He looks at you through the rear-view mirror, the amused smile on his lips dying as soon as he sees you. “The game… football?”

You look back at the fence, jumping again. It hasn’t moved but it feels closer. You look between the fence and the rear-view mirror a couple times.

“Can’t you see that?” you ask, pointing outside.

“Holy shit!”

In his panic, he grazes the horn. The noise creates a chain reaction, bringing attention to the creature which causes more horns to go off. One car in the front drives the red light, crashing into an oncoming car. It creates onlookers from other directions but everyone in this lane hurries to get out.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” the driver mutters under his breath, trying to find a gap to drive through. He’s unsuccessful, as you’re the car closest to the creature. Even though the chill remains, you make yourself look closer, study it. Despite its relatively skinny limbs, it could probably still penetrate the car with its pointy edge. Shatter the glass, for sure. Strength overrules dullness and if being trampled, you would probably prefer something sharper to penetrate you anyway. A dull blade being slowly forced into you is arguably worse than a quick, sharp, stab.

You gasp as it starts moving, scrambling backwards. The seatbelt stops you, and you consider taking it off but think better of it with how recklessly everyone is driving. It moves along the fence, its grotesque movements making you sick. A shrill scream can be heard from in front of you. A child, by the sounds of it. You once again consider unbuckling yourself, run to help, but you sit frozen. Especially as it starts climbing off the fence and into traffic. It confirms your suspicions, using one of its arrow-shaped talons to easily and completely wreck the roof of one of the cars. It keeps going, crushing another one. When it lifts the first talon, it’s covered in blood. You start feeling a little dizzy and avert your eyes, catching the free road behind you.

“Hey. Hey, you can back up.”

The driver turns and then hurries back around, putting the car in reverse. He hits the gas and you’re pushed forward, the seatbelt stopping you from hitting the seat in front of you. You gasp and grab your chest in panic. Your vision blackened for a second and when it comes back, you’re nauseous and delirious. It gets worse when he changes gear and suddenly starts driving forward. You’re pushed back this time, heartbeat accelerating together with the car. You’ve never felt it beat this fast. He speeds through the neighborhoods, getting horned at and yelled at along the way.

“Hey, grab your siblings.”

You look up, seeing the call on the dashboard.

“What?” the voice on the other end responds.

“Grab your siblings, we need to go. Now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s been an attack in the city, we need to leave.”

Scrambling is heard on the other end, the voice calling for other people. The driver makes a sudden right turn and you grab whatever you can to steady yourself. He drives for a couple blocks before hitting the breaks. You, once again, get pushed forward, but this time you catch yourself with your hands.

“Get out.”

You glance up. The driver is staring at you. “What?”

“Get out!” he yells. You flinch, leaning back. The sound of a door opening can be heard and you turn to see an older boy and three younger kids running towards the car. “Get out! You can’t fit in here, I’m sorry.”

Your hands shake as you reach for the buckle, and also when you reach for the car door. The older boy pulls you out and shoves the other kids in. You’re left on the sidewalk, forced to watch your one mode of transportation drive away without you. Left standing with shaking hands and blurry eyes. Alone, in a suburb you’ve never been in.

“Hey.” You jump, snapping your head to see a woman your age next to you. “Are you okay?”

You blink. “I don’t know.”

She looks worried. “I saw the taxi kick you out. Do you need a ride or do you live close by?”

“No, I… I live on the other side of town.”

“I can call you a new taxi.”

“No!” You grab her arm and she flinches. “There’s been an attack in the city.”

Her eyes widen. “A terror attack?”

“No. Uh, maybe. I don’t know.”

“Wh—” Her words die halfway up as her eyes refocus behind you. You turn to see what she’s looking at, a full-body shiver running through you when you see the creature again. Or another one. She grabs your arm suddenly and starts running. You try to ignore your shaking legs and follow her pace. You get to the other side of the building, pausing for breath. She pulls on you again and you force yourself to keep going despite the rising burn in your feet. “My car is parked at my parents’ place. I can take you, c’mon.”

You try to dissociate from the pain, focusing on placing one foot in front of the other. You could have sworn events like this gave you enough adrenaline to keep going, like parents gaining super strength when their kid is in danger. You witness the impossible and your pain should go away, but it doesn’t. It’s almost amplified. It’s all you can think about. You stumble over your next step, almost falling over, but she catches you. She wraps an arm around you, hoisting you up by your armpits. It helps to keep you upright but every step still sends lightning up your legs. It’s like needles piercing your feet over and over again. You only hold out until you reach a tunnel, where you collapse knees first. It’s completely in your imagination but part of you hears a crack.

She pulls on your arm. “We have to keep going.”

You wheeze, trying to get your breathing under control enough to talk. You move to sit, the immediate pressure in your legs easing.

“You… go. Can’t… run.”

Tears build in her eyes. “No, you have to come.”

You shake your head. She turns and looks at the road, then back behind you. It’s empty as far as you can see on your end but you can also tell that she can see something.

“Thank you. For saving me. But you have to go.”

Her face quivers.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, then turns and keeps running. You watch as she gets smaller and smaller, and your pain grows duller and duller. It’s still there but the lack of movement calms it. You have to close your eyes, turn off as many senses as you can, to catch your breath, but then you hear it; the rumbling above you. You open your eyes and turn to see two limbs hanging over the opening of the tunnel. It’s not trying to get inside, it’s climbing over. The bridge shakes, causing a rain of dust. The two talons on your left disappear and one penetrates ground on your right, breaking the pavement. It seems to realize that, though, as it sets the other ones down gently. Then it takes off. It moves forward like a spider, smoothly and effortlessly, but at the speed of a cheetah. You gasp and cover your mouth when you see it trample her. When one of the talons crushes her back. The penetration is so deep that she is pushed up on its limb and stays there as it keeps going. As it keeps running with the weight of a human on one of its talons, never slowing it down. You cover your mouth harder, hoping to muffle the sob that leaves you. Your body shakes with the effort to silence it. The feeling from before is back; utter and debilitating fear. You press your eyes shut, resisting the urge to tear your face asunder. All the hospital visits and this is the one that leads to this. The one that gave you nothing, the one you could have skipped. You could have been home now. Safe on the other side of town. You wonder if more creatures are over there, though. This one couldn’t have been the one on Main Street. With the speed of them, though, maybe it can be.

Your hands tremble as you reach up and wipe your eyes. You try to stand up but collapse back down immediately. Of all moments, your body chooses the absolute worst time to betray you. It doesn’t matter, it can’t. You lie down on your stomach, clothes be damned, and you start crawling to the edge of the tunnel. The sides of your hands scrape against the rough ground, gravel and dirt creeping into your open wounds. Once you reach the end you grab the railing by the stairs, pulling yourself up with a guttural moan. You quickly slap a hand over your mouth, muffling the screams. The stairs lead up to the road and the two flights look endless. Your feet burn at your soles and you choke down a sob. Every step you take makes the pain worse, and you think this will kill you. This will be your doom. Your death has been planned for years.

A loud crash catches your attention and you force quicker steps up the stairs, gripping the railing for support. Two people get out of their respective cars and start yelling at each other. You only hear key words, blame being passed back and forth, and then it breaks into a fight. A fight so bad they don’t see the creature approaching. You want to scream, warn them, but the fear paralyzes you. You stand completely still as the men are trampled, as the cars are wrecked, as the bystanders scream and run in terror.

You start looking around, desperate for shelter. The universe answers with a door to a basement at the other side of the apartment complex you’re standing by. You look back at the creature, still standing in the middle of the crossroad. The onlookers from the crash lie dead on the sidewalk. With the best attempt at a deep breath you can muster, you start moving towards the basement door. Pain shoots up your legs every time you put weight on them and you have to actively stop yourself from groaning out loud. At your third step you manage to step on a rock and it presses into your heel. You fall over with a yelp. The creature immediately perks up, starting to scramble towards you. You hold your breath, your entire body shaking. It stops right beside you and you look up in horror, only now being able to truly grasp the size of it. The one talon sinking into the mud in front of you is as tall as you.

It’s still for too long, you can’t stay here. The unpredictability is too dangerous. Slowly, carefully, you move your right hand forward, followed by the right leg. It feels like the loudest noise in the world as your knee and hand sinks into the mud. It doesn’t move, though, so you do it again. Your body trembles with fear but you’re slowly moving forward without any movement around you. The basement door gets bigger, closer, and it’s almost like you can feel it. Like you can reach out and grab it.

A loud scream comes from your right and the creature turns and comes storming in your direction and you make the realization just in time that one of the talons is going to hit you. You throw yourself to the left, rolling over until you’re covered in dirt and your face is pressed down in the mud. You quickly push yourself up, gasping, before looking over at the creature. It’s still going for the other noise. You look around to see what it was and a young girl is standing a couple meters ahead. She looks like she came from the basement you were going for, as the door is now a smidge open. She’s crying, loudly and inconsolably. She only has seconds with the speed it's going at, and it could speed up at any moment. With how fast the other one went, she could be dead immediately. Right now. This one is taking its time, though, for some reason. Maybe out of confusion.

You push yourself up, slipping in the mud. In a way to get ahead of the pain, you rush forward. You run and you run for what feels like forever. Everything has slowed down and every blow to the ground feels like landing on a bed of nails. The creature is moving too, approaching the same goal. Whether knowingly or not. You get to the finish line in just seconds, but it was one second too much. The girl’s cries disappear in an instant and you can no longer see her. She’s been crushed to anonymity. You let out a cry, collapsing down on the ground again. It hears it, because it hears everything, but you don’t care anymore. Let it take you.

You wail like a baby, like the girl. The creature’s movements are impossible to miss and you know it's moving towards you but you can’t move. You can’t get out of its way. You brace yourself for the pain, hoping it kills you quickly, but the universe doesn’t answer. The creature comes running and its small steps should guarantee a fatal stab but it misses you. By some miracle, you manage to be positioned just out of the way. It stops above you, equally confused. One of its talons twitches, like it misses the feeling of hitting something. It’s going to go back. You know it, you can feel it. It knows something is here and it needs to eliminate it.

Slowly you lift one leg, pressing your foot into the ground. You stifle a sob, and then a scream when you have to push yourself up with it. It’s big enough to stand freely under but you crouch anyway, taking small, agonizing, steps forward. It feels like forever until you reach the talons but when you do you turn on your side and attempt to shimmy out between two of them. A noise is heard in the distance and the creature reacts, turning. You take a step back, slapping your hands over your mouth. You bite your cheek and widen your eyes in order to not react to the pain, waiting for a long time to see if it stills once more. It does and you try again. You turn on your side, walking sideways— it almost hurts more. You wrap your jacket as tight around you as you can, pointing your elbows out and sucking in your stomach. You attempt a big step, landing right between two talons, staring one in its nonexistent face. You can’t hang your head in risk of nudging it and you can’t breathe out in case it’s really sensitive to touch, so you hold your head up high and you hold your breath. Slowly, so slowly, you take another step, bending your knee so you can use the strength of it to take the rest of your body with you. It’s nerve-wracking, made worse by the lack of oxygen, but you make it. You breathe out in relief, shoulders deflating. You forget to straighten your arms, though, and when you turn your elbow nudges a talon. The world morphs into slow motion once more and the same time it takes for you to redirect your eyes up to its body, it has already turned to face you, in its own non-human way. You know what you have to do. You know you have to run. You’re closer to the basement now, if you run you could make it there in seconds. It could too, though. It’ll follow you either way.

You turn, every millisecond feeling like hours, and you start running. The conscious part of your brain has forgotten how but the subconscious part easily jumps in, helping you move when you’ve forgotten how. You know you’re crying, you know you’re making noise, but you can’t hear it. You can’t feel it. You just need to make it to that basement. That’s all that matters now.

The door is held up by a wooden wedge and you open it, kicking the wedge inside. When you’re inside you make the devastating realization that the door closes on its own. You pull and you pull but you’re only slowing it down. The creature is already here and the door is only halfway closed. A talon gets through the door and you gasp, throwing yourself back. It managed to pierce your shin, creating a tear in your pants. The building shakes and you realize it’s climbing it, just like the one on the fence. You look around, finding some solace in the fact that you’re surrounded by concrete. Surely it can’t penetrate concrete. The talon that got inside pulls away but is caught between the door and the wall, its shape acting as an anchor. It pulls and pulls but it’s stuck. You look around again, finding a heap of rusty axes in the corner. You go to pick one up. It’s heavier than you expected. You put a tentative finger against the blade and it’s as dull as if you’ve touched the back. Hopefully it’s sharp enough, though. It’ll have to be. You walk up to the struggling talon, still trying to make its way out. It’s impossible. The only way it’s getting out is if you let it.

You let out a gut-wrenching scream as you raise the axe above your head and swing down. It barely dents but the house begins to shake. You look around in fear, but you see that only one wall is moving. It has no way of making sounds, this is its screech. With a newfound strength, you swing the axe again, hitting the same spot as before. The shaking gets worse but you hit again. And again. And again. Screaming all meanwhile. It tries to pull away but it only tears its wound further. It opens up for your final swing and you hit it spot-on. The tip of the talon falls to the ground and you back up, watching as human-looking blood leaks out around it, creating a pool of red. The vibrating gets even worse and you rush forward to close the door. Locks do nothing but you check it anyway. Then you back up until you hit the wall on the other side of the room, sinking down. 

It’s only now you remember that your feet hurt. You look at them and it’s unlikely but you think you can see the hum in them. Everything your body dulled is slowly coming back, and with one big breath, you scream.