Evolutionary

Ch 6. - Overgrowth

"Ha! It looks like it should be in a rave!"

Nobody replied. But Carlson decided to crouch next to the pulsating fungus. He rummaged through his backpack and took a sample of the strange mushroom. As he cut into it, it seemed to flinch. Never before had he seen such a response from a plant.

"No humor." She sighed, and began to walk down the dark hallway. "Anyways, Outdoor World is on the other side of the mall on the upper level, if we take the escalator bank on the west." She was cut off by a loud scream, everybody went silent. They knew what it was, it was human.

"That can't be good." Tim muttered.

Scared, James began to cuss silently to himself as he paced back and forth.

"Turn off the flash lights!" Liz barked, waving her hand at them. They scrambled to cut out the light, and eventually all was dark in the corridors.

She raised her weapon and everyone waited anxiously as the faint echo of running footsteps grew louder and louder.

A young kid, maybe eighteen years old, with long hair skidded around the corner. He jumped at the sight of them; he was clearly in a state of panic. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was agape. He was covered in blood, and from what Carlson could see he had no cuts, so it wasn't his own.

"Who screamed?" Carlson asked the young man.

"You don't want to stick around here, man. I managed to kill one but there's still another one out there! It got Ryan as we were trying to get away! He's gone and if we don't get out of here we're next!"

"Calm down, son." Liz said softly. "What exactly did you kill? And why are you here anyways, shouldn't you be at home?"

"Ryan and I thought it would be cool to stake it out here. Everything was going great until the vines started to move in after the first day. They started to cover up the lights and things got real dark. Eventually we started to hear skittering in the ceiling, but we thought it was just some rodents. But then today I actually saw one, they're like black carpets, but then they fold up into a 'M' shape, and walk around like giant centipedes. They move real fast and have a horrible hiss."

Above them, almost in unison to the kid explain the hiss, they heard a blood curdling cross between mandible clicking and the hiss of a snake. The kid stood frozen in fear.

"Just like that man." He muttered.

They all looked upwards and the young man came face to face with the centipede like creature. It had four dripping mandibles that seemed to be built for ripping flesh, surrounding it's toothy maw. Without warning it flopped off of the ceiling and wrapped around the man like a blanket. It sent its millions of tiny claws into his body, interlocking like a zipper. Before anyone had time to react, the creature messily ripped it's claws out of him, shredding his body horribly. The creature then turned its attention to the group, seeing them as a threat to its meal.

"Shoot it! Shoot it!" James was yelling.

Carlson aimed and fired a burst of three shots into its back. The creature writhed in pain on the floor, smearing its black, goo-like blood on the floor while emitting an ear piercing squeal. James darted up to the creature and began to hack at it with his machete. With each strike the creature screamed and squirmed, and finally with one heavy, well placed blow, he decapitated it.

"We need to get out of here, now." James said, trying to catch his breath.

"It's in our best interest to push forward! Outdoor World is just down the hall, we just need to get upstairs. Besides, there might not be any more of those... things."