I should have known Maria had something sneaky going on behind the curtains. When she asked me to check if the top floor for a bathroom she wasn’t really planning on taking a shower. It was probably for something else.

Alyssa and I dodged through the beast’s scampering hand and ran for the stairs. By the time we crossed the first set of stairs, I heard a giant section of the wall slamming down. The beast was inside, and I needed to find whatever the heck was in the shower room - fast.

I ran through the corridors, barely checking on what was inside. My eyes were on the little door beside the last office. When I was near it, I heard another echoing roar. There was another sound of something heavy slamming onto the wall, and this time it came down easily.

“Fuck my life,” I kicked the door. “You know what I said about loving this life more than the last one. I was wrong, sometimes jerking off alone is better than having a beast chasing you.”

“Could have asked me for a helping hand,” Alyssa muttered.

“Back then I didn’t know you loved me…”

I took a quick look around the little space. There was the large sink, then a broken mirror, a toilet then a shower cramped to the left.

“Love?” Tara’s voice blared through the phone speakers. “So you two are a thing now?”

Oh shit…

I forgot the phone was still on.

“I’m going to stay at the doorway,” Alyssa said. “Come to me once you find whatever it is. The beast can’t kill me, so I can at least distract it.”

“Wait Alyssa-”

But before I could speak another word she was gone.

Fuck my life why can’t anyone just listen to me?

“Did you find it?” Maria’s voice came through the phone.

“I found a shower Maria, what am I supposed to do? Take a fucking bath?”

“Remove the knob. And do it quick.”

I cursed, dropped the phone into my pockets, and fiddled with the shower head. I thought it would be a difficult task, but somehow it came free. It might be because there was a creature about to kill me, or because someone already unscrewed it before.

The head of the shower didn’t look anything special, but then when I looked close I saw the top of the shower was different. It had the same color, but inside the little circle were tiny red dots, almost like….led bulbs.

“Uh…Maria?”

“That is a landmine,” her snarky voice came through the phone speakers. “Small enough to be hidden but large enough to have a hole through the entire floor.”

Jesus fucking Christ, that woman would be the only person with a brain to hide a landmine inside the shower.

“Remove the top cap, and you’ll see its other end. Lure the beast somewhere, and place it where it walks. Then if you are smart, get the fuck out of there as fast as your legs carry you…or even faster than that if you can. Oh, and you’ll get like one second.”

I stared at the little thing. Making the creature step on it wasn’t a hard thing. Alyssa could place it while I lure it in. But getting out of there…that part was hard…unless…

“Alex,” it was Tara’s voice. “Do you have a plan?”

I ran to the corridor.

“Dammit, I know you are silent when you have a plan Alex!”

“Tara, get here with Maria on that jeep. Keep an eye out for Hal. That bastard might be anywhere.”

I dropped the phone back into my pocket, ignoring Tara’s voice. Alyssa was in the corridor, and the beast was climbing onto the second floor through the railing. I could see its red eyes fixing on me as I nearly stumbled onto my sister.

“Did you find it?” Alyssa asked, then her eyes moved to the landmine. “Oh shit!”

We were trapped. The beast was covering the only exit, so there was only one way down. I looked down the windows, right onto the floor beneath me. It was at least an eight-foot fall. Even if my knees could handle it the pain will be intense.

At least it’s better than getting caught in a landmine.

“Alex,” my sister shook me out of my thoughts. “What’s the blast radius?”

“It’s not a big one, at least if Maria is truthful. But we’ll have to get the fuck out of this entire building.”

My eyes moved to the window. Alyssa seemed to get the idea. She huffed. “Hollywood should be hiring us for stuntmen.”

There was another roar and a chunk of the wall came down as the beast made its way inside. The corridor was too thin for him, but one tug from the arm made the little metallic frame on the right bend a complete 180 and get crushed completely.

“Ready?” Alyssa asked.

I handed Alyssa the mine. “Plant it. I’m going to distract it.”

Before she could argue I pushed her to the side and walked towards the beast in one single stride. From the outside, it might have looked like a brave young boy was walking towards the beast to protect his sister/girlfriend, but in truth, I was shivering in my legs and trying desperately not to piss in my pants. This time I didn’t even have a gun, and somehow I should be tricky enough to cover Alyssa planting the bomb from my view.

“Come on you little shit,” I intended that as a battle cry, but it came more as a little dying sob.

The creature clearly didn’t like being called shit. With one fierce glance at me, it started charging. It broke through the metal frames on the right, crushing the glass windows and tearing the metal bars with each stride. Each of its footsteps echoed on the rough floor and I turned, cracking the cement and making me jump.

Alright, now I run….

I turned back and dashed at Alyssa. I caught the mine placed to my right from the corner of my eye and nearly jumped over it.

“Window!” I screamed at Alyssa. “WINDOW!”

She was already keeping a foot on the window sill.

“Jump!” I yelled.

She gave one desperate look at me, which read, Are we really doing this? Then probably her rational part took over and she launched at the empty space, and I saw her go down.

My turn…

At the same moment, I heard the familiar click. I’ve seen it in movies, video games even, but in real life, it sounded nothing more than just a mouse click, but every nerve within me told me what was to come. I jumped onto the window sill and then the light flashed. The creature roared, the light brightened, and I felt like I was inside a fucking microwave, and I jumped down. Then the sound came. It was like thunder rolling, but the sound was put into two giant large speakers and kept beside you.

But I didn’t even have any sense of what was going on. I was free-falling, probably from the wrong angles. Time was slowed. And I saw the ground coming closer and closer. The first to hit was my feet, and the impact sent shivers up my calf and my knees buckled up. The pain came later, so hard that it started from my knees and ended with blood pumping in my ears.

I gritted my teeth, but at the same time, the sounds of the exploding building echoed above me. Glass and concrete flew, shortly followed by grey, dusty smoke. With tears falling down my eyes I looked up, unable to move, only to keep staring at a huge chunk of the wall coming down.