It’s Not Easy Making Money In The Apocalypse

As every eye of the abomination locked onto me, I couldn’t help but feel a foreboding sense of dread. I was frozen in place. How could such a thing still be alive? It had been decades. Things needed to eat to survive. Its terrifying eyes stared at me, and I stared right back.

“Run!” I felt the tug on the back of my shirt, and it was the only thing that snapped me out of my daze.

I ran with Zara pulling the way. The monster let out a blood-curdling roar, and I started to hear the sound of heavy footsteps stomping after us. What were we going to do? We were completely screwed. The monster was too dangerous and too strong. It could even fight off the military from this world.

“That’s right, my gun!”

I had completely forgotten I was holding onto a gun as it appeared. I stopped and swung the gun back. I loaded and aimed. Just as the creature turned the corner, I fired.

Boom!

The kickback startled me a bit. Compared to the other guns I had wielded, even the smart gun, there wasn’t a whole lot of force. This slammed into my shoulder with enough strength that I felt like I was hit, stumbling back before Zara caught me. As for the bullet, I hit my target. Given the size of the monster, it would have been more surprising if I had somehow missed it. It struck one of the eyeballs on its chest, which popped. It let out another hair-raising roar and then lowered its shoulders and started to charge. I was staring at it with a stunned expression when Zara pulled on me again, bringing me back into a run.

“Don’t be an idiot!” She cursed. “You already knew the gun wouldn’t work.”

I couldn’t help but wince. Seeing that creature had caused my brain to freeze up. From the moment we picked up the gun, we had established that it wasn’t enough to bring this creature down. I didn’t know why I thought that shooting it this time would have changed our fate. We would end up just like those bodies beings slaughtered in the corner.

“Where are we going?” I demanded.

“Back under that blast door. As long as we can get under there, it’s not like he can follow.”

“Oh! Good idea!”

I thought she had just been running away blindly, but it turned out that Zara had a plan from the beginning. The blast door only had been opened a crack. If the pair of us dived for it, we’d be safe, and that massive monster wouldn’t be able to follow. At the least, it’d give us time to think.

Thankfully, the creature wasn’t particularly fast. We could hear every step, and even when it was charging it wasn’t quite at our speed. However, the blast door wasn’t that far away, so we also didn’t have time to put more than a turn away from the creature. We reached the blast door, and unlike the first time when we carefully slid under it, we both dived, kicking and shouting until we pulled out. I could hear the creature approaching as I pushed my way through, and my gun ended up getting stuck on the door.

I abandoned it, forcing myself the rest of the way. As I crawled away from the door on the safe side, I could only let out a sigh of relief. A massive thud structure the door, and I nearly jumped. Zara stared at the door with narrowed eyes, looking like she didn’t trust it to hold.

There were a few moments of quiet, and I was just starting to calm down when I saw two clawed hands wrap around the bottom of the door. Had the door been down, he might not have been able to get his hands there, but as was, his hand could get a grip. I heard the monster let out another roar, and then the sound of rusty metal grinding. The door slowly started to move up. Zara let out a cry, racing to the door and grabbing the handle, trying to pull it back down. However, despite her effort, the door was still grinding back up little by little.

“Daniel, help!” She shouted, looking at me where I was still sitting on my butt.

If it had the strength to open that door, another hundred pounds wasn’t going to make a difference. He was going to get through in a few minutes, and then we’d be just like those dead soldiers in the hallway behind me. I had to presume that this enemy was unkillable. If the enemy couldn’t be killed, then how could you deal with it? This abomination felt like it came straight from a horror video game.

Wait, how did you deal with an unstoppable, unkillable monster in a horror game? You had to run around it and then get behind it. That was when an idea struck me.

“I got it!” I ran up and grabbed Zara, pulling her away from the door.

She resisted for a moment, but she finally succumbed as the door was already nearly halfway up, and we could start to see its eyes and the flailing tentacles. She stumbled before running behind me. I was leading her this time. We made the turn that led to the dead-end and past the radioactive offices. I could hear a roar behind me, but I already had a path. As we reached a certain four-way intersection, I did a running jump, crossing the intersection as quickly as possible.

As soon as we were passed, I pulled her into the room full of mutated bodies, the one we had first started in. We were back to where we began.

“It’s a dead-end!” She cried out as her eyes fell on the bodies. “You’re not suggesting we hide among them? What if it can see heat? What if it can smell us?”

“Shut up! We shouldn’t have to.”

I returned to the door, just peeking around the corner. I could hear the thumping of the monster as it grew closer and closer. Seeing that I wasn’t running anymore or trying to hide, Zara’s curiosity was stemmed. She also looked around the door, but she didn’t seem to see what I saw.

“It’s getting closer.”

“Shh!” I hushed her.

The monster reached the intersection at that moment. “Intruder detected.”

The sound of a turret went off, dozens of bullets striking the abomination from the side. Several of its soft eyes popped as it was struck repeatedly. It let out a pained roar and then turned. I could hear it thumping down the hallway as it went to take care of the turret.

“Now!” I hissed, running out and back the way we came.

Zara figured out my intention and followed after me. I didn’t even look when I hit the intersection. Any turret fire was being blocked by the abomination’s massive form. I heard a loud smash, and the turret fire stopped.

“Intruder… not… teeerrrrrminated…” The turret audio died.

There was another roar, but that only spurred me to run even faster. It was too much to hope that the monster wasn’t still following us. I took the corner and went past the blast door which was now torn open enough we could run right through. I continued at a frantic pace, followed by the thuds and roars of the creature behind us.

When we finally reached the entrance, I ran right through into the chamber where the abomination had been locked. I kept running until we reached a larger circular door similar to the one Cecelia had opened to unleash the monster in the first place.

“Where is the control panel?” I hissed frantically, scouring the walls.

“This isn’t a powered door. It’s manual.” Cecelia declared.

“Damn it! I told you to tell me this stuff before!” I kicked the door, feeling a bit of pain in my foot for my efforts.

“The door valve is missing,” Zara responded.

“Ah… that…” Cecelia seemed flustered after hearing that. “It’s got to be somewhere.”

A roar sounded out rather close. We didn’t have time. I ran back out into the hallway just as the monster made the final corner. Its remaining eyes locked on me. I grabbed the connector and plugged it into the control panel.

“Close the door!” I demanded.

“You have to remain connected the entire time the door closes. It’s a failsafe of these kinds of doors.” Cecelia warned. “We’ll be trapped on this side.”

“Do it!”

The door began to hiss, rolling back into place as it closed. Zara, who was standing on the other side watching me, only realized what was going on when the door started rolling over.

“Wait! No!” She ran toward me, but the door had already covered her exit.

With a hiss, the door pushed back into place, locking her into that chamber with a click. There was a roar as a hand fell where I was standing. I pulled out the connector and leaped back just as the hand struck where I had been standing. I stumbled back as the abomination threw out another hand, backhanding me. I flew back several feet, hitting the wall with a bang. That hurt. With a groan, I forced myself to my feet. The creature turned its focus completely on me.

“Alright, bastard. You want to do this? Let’s do this!”

I let out a roar of my own and then ran at the creature. It seemed a bit surprised at first, but then it prepared itself to swipe at me. As I got close, I fell into a slide. Its claws passed over as I slid between its feet. At that moment, I grabbed onto one of its feet. It looked down at me, its many eyes meeting mine.

I gave a grin. “World Travel.”