Part Three - Michelle

Michelle pulled her head back inside and closed the door but it didn’t help. The noise and vibrations of the stampede of drenched bodies approaching thundered through the glass front of the bar.

If the mob wanted in, there wouldn’t be any way to keep them out.

Hand trembling, she fastened the bolt at the top of the door. Maybe they wouldn’t smash the door. Maybe they wouldn’t even stop or notice the bar. Maybe she were still OK.

She glanced back at the bar. It was virtually empty. A handful of regulars scattered at the bar in front of Jessica and a couple lone drinkers at solitary tables, their hands clutched around their glasses, determined to ignore the chaos closing in around them.

And then there were the four others. She’d been trying to forget about them. One with a face full of broken glass and blood lying not far from her feet, and the three others back up in the booth, waiting with their desperate thirst for more drinks to arrive.

“What’s going on out there?” Jessica called over to her, resting the phone’s receiver face up on the bar. She hadn’t completely given up hope of getting through to the emergency services. Not yet.

“It looks like a crowd’s got out of control,” Michelle answered, looking back out through the glass. “The police have shown up.” She was surprised to hear that her voice sounded causal, despite her growing fear that what was happening was much worse than that.

The sounds of the running mob were becoming louder, their screams drowning out the fading cries of the police sirens and the wet thuds of fast footfalls pelting the ground as the mob ran up the street.

They were getting close, very close.

Michelle jumped back from the glass when she saw the first one rush in front of the bar. Dozens of them raced past the window in front of her, their faces distorted by their strange expressions and the reflections of the street lights spinning off their wet skin as they ran.

They didn’t slow down or even as much as glance into the bar as they went, yet their fleeting presence chilled Michelle. It wasn’t that she was afraid of them breaking into the bar anymore. It was a terrible certainty that something far worse was coming.

The mob seemed to move as one being. None of them looked to either side, not even for a second. Their heads remained rigidly straight as they moved. It looked odd and unnatural, like they had metal rods bracing their necks in place as they ran.

Worst of all was the shriek. At a distance, it had just sounded like the usual cacophony of yelling and screaming, much like any over-excited crowd. From closer, it was more distinctive. These were not the cries of a normal, out-of-control mob. It was the unified howl of one mind with many voices. Every person was crying the same wordless scream. The different voices of all those people were synchronised to blend into one horrible, bloodcurdling wail.

The shriek whirled around the street outside and then receded as they ran further up the road away from the bar.

Half in horror, half in relief, Michelle took a step back away from the glass but jumped as her foot bumped into the prone body on the floor.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, although she doubted the man was conscious enough to hear her.

She turned back to survey the bar. The patrons seemed relieved that the mob had passed although they had been studiously pretending to be unaware or unconcerned with outside events.

Maybe she would get through this night.

“THIRST!” a loud groan rose up out of the booth and she saw one of the men stumble out of his seat in an even worse state than when she had last left them only minutes before.

His knees buckled beneath him and he collapsed to the ground. Driven by some unreasonable need, he starting dragging himself forward, like a dying man in the desert grasping at a mirage.

“Thhrsst,” he rasped before his face fell flat on the floor and he lay motionless only inches away from the booth.

Michelle looked around the bar. Everyone else avoided her gaze. It was her problem.

She grabbed a pitcher of water and started back up towards the booth but a loud crash from outside distracted her. The drinks on the tables and bar rattled ominously in their glasses. The water splashed and spilt over the sides of the jug she was holding and she realised that the whole ground was shaking.

An earthquake? On top of everything else?

She crawled under a nearby table as the ground continued to shake. A pang of conscience made her drag the table over towards the bloodied head of the man near the door. She couldn’t fit all of him under there with her but she could shield his face from any more broken glass if the front wall of the bar smashed. She cowered under the protection of the small wooden table and tried to avoid looking at the mangled face she was so close to.

The ground stopped shaking. It can’t have been longer than a few seconds, she thought. There was still the tinkling sound of glasses vibrating against each other at the bar but otherwise it had gone quiet.

Michelle peeked out from under the table. The bar was surprisingly undamaged. Maybe the quake hadn’t been as strong as it felt. People started emerging from the temporary shelters under furniture.

“Is everyone OK…?” she started but a deafening smash outside broke her off. The ground lurched in another shuddering wave of tremors.

She pulled herself back under the table. What was going on?

She looked out towards the street. Her hand clutching the black metal leg of the table started to shake uncontrollably. It wasn’t because of an earthquake.

A giant grey tentacle had smashed into the top of two of the cars parked outside on the street, flattening them like they were made of cardboard. She wanted to looked away but couldn’t. She noticed all sorts of details she wished she hadn’t. The thick purple veins that webbed around underneath the semi-translucent skin, the smatterings of blood smeared along the sides of the tentacle that indicated it had destroyed more than cars. Worst was the horrible flicking whip-like motion with which it coiled back off the obliterate vehicles.

She couldn’t see how far back down the street the tentacle reached from her limited view underneath the table. Just how massive was this thing?

She pulled herself out from the table with a reluctant determination she didn’t know she possessed. She had to see.

Michelle froze on the spot as soon as she stood, her curiosity, like her bravery, sinking out of her in an instant. She watched the huge grey tentacle as it lifted back up into the air.

It wasn’t a tentacle at all. It was a toe.