Nobody is stupid enough to venture into unknown territories, except for Ilya. Don't get him wrong! He never meant to enter that mysterious village.
Fate led him there to save, or be saved.
"Peekaboo!"
Beast is a cruel creature that used to be human...
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With only the dim street lights to guide him, Ilya ran. He ran towards the house Maggie talked about—an abandoned house with no lights on the edge of the town. He ran for safety. He ran for his life.
The screams only got closer, coming from every direction. At first, it was one voice. Then came another. Then another.
"They're here," Ilya remembered Maggie's last words to him before they separated. "They're everywhere—the shriekers."
She told him to run and never look back. She told him to use the dagger she gave him to defend himself, but only if he had to. The shriekers were merciless beings. Once they got a hold of you, they would bash your head and suck the brain juice out of it while still alive.
They thrived on brains. They were smarter than moaners and faster than talkers. A product in between the two other zombie types. A deadly weapon on the loose.
"But what about you?" Ilya had told Maggie whilst the screams got nearer. "You can't fight them alone."
Ilya remembered her triumphant smirk as if she was telling him not to worry about her.
Then, she changed.
The white of her eyes got stained with crimson fluids, swimming and twirling until they painted them murderous red. Her smile was crammed with growing fangs. Viens circled her pale skin, pulsing vividly in her neck and arms. Her nails grew black and thick.
The Maggie Ilya knew was gone. She embraced her Vampirism and transformed right in front of his eyes. A hiss from her new form earned a flinch from Ilya as he let go of her shoulders.
With a strong push from Maggie and a final scream from the shriekers, Ilya ran.
He kicked through the heavy layers of snow as fast as his legs could let him. Shallow breaths tore out of his heaving lungs. He pushed himself beyond his limits. He ran until he could run no more.
Just when his legs gave up on him and sent his knees to the ground, he saw it—a house with no lights.
Ilya laughed in relief. His miserable gaze brightened with happy tears.
Ilya assumed that it was the house Maggie was talking about, but it wasn't what he expected.
It didn't look like a house. It was an industrial building in its early construction phases, made up of unpainted concrete walls. There were no windows or doors, just one frameless opening up on the second floor. And the only way up there was by a ladder placed along that wall.
Then, a high-pitched sound erupted near him. It was close. A little too close.
Ilya panicked, looking in every direction, until he spotted a shadow in the storm. He froze in fear. His breath hitched in his throat.
Then he saw the other shadows. First, they growled. Then, a screech shook Ilya's nerves to the ground.
"Oh, no, no, no."
Ilya scrambled and crawled until he pulled himself off the ground. He sprinted towards that ladder without looking back. It was his only chance to survive.
Ilya got a hold of the ladder and climbed it as fast as his trembling limbs could take him. His skin crawled when he felt the shriekers' screams and feral growls right behind him. When he was almost to the top, the ladder wiggled. He looked down, and there he found moving corpses hungry for his flesh and brains.
The shriekers jumped and fought each other to climb that narrow ladder.
"Aaahh!" Ilya screamed and started kicking them. "Get the fuck away from me!"
Rotten flesh between their teeth. Crimson blood painted their hands and mouths. And their eyes... they were milky and ghostly. They pushed and scratched one another like raging animals fighting for a meal. They saw, smelled, and heard Ilya as he struggled helplessly to escape their grasp.
The sweet scent of his sweat made them hungrier.
The ladder was about to collapse, but someone pulled Ilya in the nick of time before it went down with the shriekers.
Ilya was thrown into a room full of painting tools. He groaned and felt like the air was kicked out of his lungs when he landed on his chest. He quickly twisted his torso around, propping himself on his elbows to look at what pulled him inside.
"Well, well, well." An oversized silhouette of a man stood and almost blocked that big opening leading outside. "What do we have here?"
His voice was so gruff and deep, it vibrated through Ilya's veins. The man was larger and taller than Charlie. His shadow revealed that he either had a large fur coat on him or his body was hairier than anything Ilya had ever seen.
The Viking-descendant man took a couple of steps forward that shook the whole floor underneath the scared petit teenager. The man sniffed the air and then exhaled.
"Ah. Fresh meat."
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