Page 157 of Mayhem and Minnie

“Minnie,” I say her name on a groan. “Are you all right? Talk to me.”

She stirs in my arms. Her eyes open and she regards me with shock.

“Are you okay?—”

I don’t get to finish the question as she flexes her arms and pushes me away with astounding strength. My eyes widen in shock, but it’s nothing compared to the disbelief that forms inside of me as I watch her get to her feet and face the monstrous shadows.

The fog from before slowly takes the shape of an army of anthropomorphic creatures. They’re lined up in a triangle formation, with one creature at the front that’s larger than the rest, but just as ugly and disgusting.

Their bodies are gray and gnarly, resembling mummified flesh. Ribs poke through the dried flesh, angling inward and pointing toward the hollow of their stomach.

There’s nothing there. Only a black hole as if their internal organs had shriveled up and shrunk inside of the chest cavity.

Their pelvis is a mass of mottled flesh. They have no genitalia, only raised scar tissue that descends down their legs, wrapping around their feet like vines wrap around trees—close together, but not close enough to hide the bony skeletal foundation. Their arms, too, are a mix between bulging bone and dried, mottled flesh where muscle should have been.

But it’s their faces that are the most terrifying—or, I should say, straight out of a nightmare.

Scar tissue abounds around the top and back of the skull, making for misshapen crania. The muscles of the face are prominent, but in the same desiccated way. They wrap around the cheekbones before thinning out in the lower part of the mandible. In fact, it’s such a thin layer of dry flesh, that when they release a battle cry, opening their mouths wide—inhumanly wide—the skin breaks apart.

The sound echoes through the stillness of the night. It’s the same sound we heard before. Right before we crashed.

Minnie’s chest is rising and falling with each labored breath as she glares at the army of skeleton-like beings bellowing their cries of war. Her lips twitch in annoyance. Her expression is a far cry from the innocent Minnie who makes gooey eyes at me.

Her gaze is focused on them—observing, calculating.

She’s not surprised. She doesn’t seem afraid, either.

Just mildly irritated.

“What the fuck?” I mutter, convinced I must be making this shit up. “What are these?”

I slowly get up and stand next to Minnie, placing a protective arm around her.

The skeleton-like beings continue to howl, their mouths hanging low, unmoving. I don’t know where the sound is coming from since their mouths are empty, black holes. Do they even have the anatomical apparatus to make sounds?

“Sentinels,” Minnie answers. I turn toward her. Her body is tightly wound, her entire demeanor changed.

“Sentinels? What the fuck does that mean?”

“Soulless beings whose only purpose is to track a target. They’re relentless, but they aren’t very strong. At least not individually. This many, though…”

“This many?” I raise a brow.

I’m convinced that this is all a dream. None of it is real. It cannot be real.

Maybe I’ve been watching too many Supernatural episodes and this is the result.

“It might prove a challenge,” Minnie says.

“A challenge for whom?”

She doesn’t answer. She’s watching the sentinels closely. Sliding one foot to the side, she assumes a fighting stance, balling her hands into fists.

Minnie. Fighting. I scoff aloud at the thought and shake my head. We’re talking about an actual bite-sized human who weighs a hundred pounds wet. Imagining her fighting anything puts an amused smile on my face.

But then I have to wonder why I’m dreaming about this savage side of Minnie. Perhaps my subconscious is trying to tell me something.

But what? That I quite like it when she becomes an aggressive lioness, baring her teeth at me and telling me that we’re meant to be? When she becomes a possessive little heathen that almost rivals my own possessiveness?

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