Page 6 of A Very Monstrous Desire

And Theo understood then that was where the smell was coming from.

It was the slightest of movements that alerted them. A flash of a shadow in the back of the shop right by the post office counter. Joel signalled them to fan out, and Theo found himself walking down the household goods aisle, which was a bit longer than he had expected as the shop was actually quite deep. Carefully, gun aloft, he crept past tinned apricots and bags of flour, and he wondered as he did so what his heart rate was. It never usually got above forty-five beats per minute, but Theo wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t in the high sixties now!

He made sure every step was gentle, cautiously thought out, and he tried his best to control his breathing as he went. As he got to the end of the aisle, he spotted Julia who had walked parallel to him along the cleaning and pet foods aisle. She looked quite flush faced. Joel joined them a moment later from a spot by the newspapers and magazines, and together they converged on the post office counter. It took up the entirety of the back of the store, and there was a shadowed area behind it.

Another flash of movement from there.

What was it?

Theo lifted his gun, intending to turn the attached torch element on and illuminate the shadowed space, but suddenly the back door opened, and Dimitri burst in, quickly followed by Gill.

Gill let out a scream.

Dimitri fired off a shot.

From behind the post office counter a dozen monsters exploded out, their mouths clicking and their claws clattering furiously.

Munching monsters.

In truth, Theo might have screamed slightly then too. He had never seen one in real life before, and they were a lot bloody bigger than he had expected them to be! The one heading straight for him was maybe three foot tall and powerfully built. Its skin glistened a horrible, pulsing purple and it was surrounded by the same inter-dimensional shimmer that everything from the other dimension had. It had four eyes and they rotated in all directions for just a moment…and then they all seemed to converge…and then they fixed on Theo.

Fuck!

Theo tightened his grip on his gun just as Joel shot the thing between two of its four eyes.

More munchers appeared.

Someone screamed again. Shots rang out and Theo turned and pelted back down the aisle past the flour and the tinned beans. Fast on his heels was Julia and they both skidded to a halt when they came to the front door. It was blocked by three munching monsters.

Where the hell had they come from?

These ones had their mouths open, and their teeth were already vibrating, sensing food nearby, and Theo didn’t think that meant the dried lentils!

“Fuck!”

They lifted their guns and shot them, taking down two. One dodged the bullets and jumped at them. Theo somehow managed to smack it away with the butt of his gun and he wasn’t sure who was more surprised, him or the munching monster. It landed back in front of the door, vibrating furiously.

“You can make a break for it from here,” Theo said quickly to Julia as the monster righted itself and began to advance. “Straight down by the biscuits and through the back door.”

“An easy sprint,” she said.

Theo nodded and steadied his gun to fire again. “Yeah.”

“I thought you said you could outrun me if you needed to?”

“Said I could, didn’t say I would.”

“I knew you were going to work out, Theo. Knew it the first moment they dragged you kicking and screaming into the base!” she said and then she went ahead and shot the munching monster straight through its fourth eye, just in time for Joel to join them.

“There’s a few more coming,” he said, and he was quite out of breath. “Suggest we retreat and regroup.”

The door was pulled open from the outside. Dimitri beckoned them out. His leg was bleeding profusely but Gill was there too, and she pointed in the direction of a field to the left where Liam and Simon were already making a run for it.

“Suggest we move, boss,” she said as the clicking noise coming from the back of the shop increased in volume.

They did not need telling twice and ran for the field, slamming the door behind them, but continuing to fire off shots as they went, and taking down any munchers that came from the back of the building. But it was only once they turned onto the field and Theo was able to see the village from a different direction that he saw something else entirely. It was next to the cottage that was next to the shop. The owner’s cottage perhaps.

A shadow.

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