Chapter 3: Chapter 3: The Purge

5 minutes of purge remaining!

Henry pulled the forklift up flush against the end of the aisle where they would have a good vantage point.

The man who had first ascended the pallet racks looked down below for opposition. He didn't see the box moving behind him. Two long arms with unnaturally long fingers extended out the side of the cardboard. It reached its long hands to clasp them around the man's skull, crushing it.

Riley fired a dart at it.

It arced downward, not reaching its target. Riley cursed.

A few frantic shouts erupted. Both Riley and Julio had the good sense to lean down, concealing themselves. Henry held his breath, shoe held over the gas pedal. Henry spotted movement toward the back of the store. He almost sighed with relief.

About a dozen grey shirts of Shopmart employees came running into the store.

Something was wrong with them. These weren't the people Henry had worked with for two years. They had smooth mannequin faces, and they moved with unnatural jerks as if guided by puppet strings.

"Aye!" Julio cried.

Henry turned.

Julio's pistol fired with a deafening pop. Coming from the item return center, a single mannequin stood with damp fluids gushing from its chest.

Henry recognized the pink flamingo on its key chain. That was Sherry. Or it had been. It started running at them.

"Hold on," Henry said.

Though he gave a warning, the forklift's acceleration took Riley by surprise. Her arm holding the arch above her, she fell into the seat beside him, nearly sitting on his lap. At the same time, the stacks of nerf gun boxes slid off the back.

Princess lunged forward to bite Riley.

"Freaking rat!" Riley protested.

"Will you both!" Henry started.

The engine wound up. Henry pulled the first lever, pulling the forks higher as he sped straight at the... Faceless.

It ran straight at him with no regard for its own life. At the last second, Henry angled the right fork. It pierced the abdomen, cracking the plastic shell further. White stuff oozed out. Julio's pistol sounded with a loud crack, shattering the thing's head.

Henry slowed down before pushing the monster into a shelf. When he backed up, the mannequin collapsed into two pieces. Two more mannequins came running in. Riley fired at one, exploding part of its arm off, but rather than attack the forklift, the two Faceless went straight for the fallen one. They grabbed its legs and torso, hobbling to pull it away with them.

They weren't attacking but that didn't deter Riley from shooting them both in the back. The pile of limbs collapsed into a larger pile. The Faceless reacted like a hivemind. Several of them pivoted on their feet to run in his direction.

One of them pulled an impossible maneuver. It had been running away, the moment Riley killed the two of them, it changed directions instantly. Jumping backward off one leg, and running backward at them. It made Henry's stomach turn.

Henry drove right at these as well. Bodies slammed into the forks, breaking like eggshells to release their white yolks. Two of them squirmed upon the forks, shish kabobed. Two became four. And before he knew it, the wheels began to spin out as eight of them stood pierced, legs breaking off beneath them to jam at the front of the forklift.

Henry pressed the gas all the way down. The rev turned red. They began to slow down.

"Uh, gancho!"

For just a moment, Henry peered down the length of the store, witnessing carnage, then he slammed the brake, putting the forklift in reverse.

Riley fired dart after dart, many of them bouncing off the shirts of the Faceless to land at their feet, exploding with less efficiency.

"Aim for the head, gaucha!" Julio said.

"I'm trying!" she said.

The forklift picked up speed. Henry angled backed up against the edge of an aisle, scraping off the Faceless, backing up in an S-type movement, he scraped them off the other side. So many parts lay sprawled out before them.

The Faceless no longer attacked. Instead, they focused on collecting the fallen pieces. Riley raised her gun, but Henry placed his hand atop it.

"I don't think we should antagonize them."

"Screw that, I want more XP."

Is that what that growing blue bar at the bottom of his screen was?

Henry looked over his shoulder, backing all the way down the toy aisle, then turned right to follow the wall.

Something roared behind them in the superstore. So many screams. Not wanting to be anywhere near whatever that was, Henry followed the front wall, turning left to follow the far right wall. He drove slowly.

The forklift seemed mostly intact, but that self-repairing function sounded invaluable. Those Faceless bled white blood, was that the White Blood he needed for the first upgrade?

Another ceiling-shaking roar sounded.

"Go faster," Riley whined.

Henry became aware of how close she was to him. She sat right up against him on the edge of the seat. He felt tempted to tell her to make space. But that would probably only irritate her.

They drove past the mannequin massacre. Faceless were quickly dragging away the parts. One of them grabbed the pieces, sticking them together in a way that didn't match a human...

Henry drove down the far right aisle of the store, bordering a tall rack. There was a complete lack of activity. They only needed to survive another minute.

Henry slowed the vehicle down.

"What are you doing?" Riley whispered.

Henry lifted a finger to his mouth.

The screams from beyond were horrific. It was one thing to see such things in the movies. Everything too frightening or realistic was smoothed over to prevent trauma to the viewer. But in reality, these screams were sharp. As piercing as nails on a chalkboard. You could feel the terror, the agony seeping through them.

Why wasn't he helping them?

Henry thought up a prayer. Just let them reach the end without any other encounters.

Something moved. Henry drove forward by instinct, but Princess went crazy, barking at the dark shadow to their left. She hopped off the vehicle to hide beneath the shelves.

Henry spun the vehicle around.

"What are you doing!" Riley said. "Keep driving!"

"I won't leave a dog to die," Henry said.

What Henry saw was unlike anything from this planet. It walked on four legs like a spider, dark and sinuous limbs ending in strange, liquid-like tentacles.

Worst was its radial maw of teeth.

Princess cowered in the shadows below. Henry pulled the first and second lever, raising the forks while angling them upward.

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"You can't be serious," Riley said. She hopped off the forklift, scuttling backward with her big gun.

"Sorry, gancho! I'm with her." Julio joined the young woman.

Henry hesitated. Princess was well hidden. But he doubted they could just drive away. Those long legs could propel the creature quite fast.

The only way to survive this would be to pin it down.

"When I pin it, shoot..."

His words died when he saw that Riley and Julio had jogged thirty paces away. Riley looked back with pain across her expression.

So he was alone. Henry raised his dart shooter, emptying the clip as he sped forth. Every dark stuck to the target, exploding, releasing splashes of dark goop. He slammed the forks into its torso. Because the forks were so high, it titled the front of the forklift up off the ground.

One of its tentacle hands melded into a nearby box, turning into a dark goop. The once box undulated with a thin membrane, and something shot out of it like a frog's tongue. Henry ducked.

A series of darts rained against the monster's chest, exploding with cracks and pops. That sticky tongue-like extension, retreated, flicking for him again, this time grabbing him.

It pulled him from his seat. An unhinged maw stretched open to consume him.

"I'm out of darts!" Riley said nearby.

So it would be his end.

A lassoed rope fell around the monster's head, pulling its jaw away just before it would have bit Henry. The monster retaliated. It stretched its head backward with a jerk. Julio flew through the air to land on its back. Amazingly the cowboy held on as it rocked back and forth trying to shake him off.

Henry tried to pull himself free.

Julio fired multiple shots into its skull, one of them knocked off target, shooting past Henry's face.

Julio ran out of bullets.

It shoved the cowboy off. It turned back to Henry, going in for the bite.

And that was when Riley screamed. This was no ordinary scream. It released a sonic wave of energy, halting the monster in its tracks. She held that note for five long seconds. Long enough for the timer to run out.

Purge complete!

The monster growled with disapproval, disappearing into a strange pocket of light behind it. Henry fell onto his own two feet.

Julio was okay. So was Riley. He nodded his thanks to the girl. Movement.

A woman stumbled into view at the back end of the aisle. She was bloodied. "Help me, please," she said.

Henry took several steps, accelerating into a job.

"Gancho, wait," Julio said.

Three Faceless and something else came into view. It looked like a person, but ten feet tall, rotund, probably weighing two tons, clothes not concealing its excess weight.

The woman screamed. "Please!" she shrieked.

Henry slowed to a walk. He stopped in his tracks.

The Faceless battered the woman, once she fell still they lifted her up to the big one. The Hungered One unhinged its jaw. Henry watched it tear the woman's arm off. It bit through her side next, blood waterfalling onto the floor below.

The sound of chewing was grotesque. But he just stood there. Too afraid to help.

Finally, the monsters obeyed the long over-run timer, walking into a strange portal behind them. Henry stood there speechless, ire against himself growing.

"You okay, man?" Julio said.

"No," Henry said. "I'm a coward."

"At least you saved the rat," Riley said.

Henry looked back into the shadows. "Princess? Come on, Princess."

The little dog reluctantly crawled out of the shadows. Her little paws walked through the black blood. Henry thought he saw of flicker of movement through the fluids. He scooped up the dog before she might be affected by some unknown force.

He looked at Julio. The man seemed unaffected by everything that had happened. Riley looked ashamed of something.

"We can stick together," Henry said.

She rubbed the side of her arm. "Sorry about earlier..."

"You came back," Henry said.

"It was nothing personal, gancho. I thought you'd gone mad!"

Henry realized how hungry he felt. "How about we grab something to eat?"

Riley looked at him like he'd gone crazy. "How can you be hungry after this?"

Henry shrugged.

"Big men need a lot of food, guacha!" Julio said. "Speaking from experience..."

Riley huffed. "Alright. Yeah. I guess."

Henry ran his hand over the forklift. A prompt appeared.

Dismiss forklift?

He rubbed his bearded chin. "Do you want to go on foot?"

"Oh hell no," Riley said, falling into his chair. "How do I drive this thing?"

He blinked at her.

"Well?" she asked.

"You can drive it over to the mannequin corpses. I need some of their blood."

They both looked at him like he'd gone mad.

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