Car alarms blared in the distance. Gunfire was rampant from that direction as well. Sounds echoed and bounced about in every direction. I quickly slid into the driver’s seat, started the car, and brought it into Katnessa’s driveway. I put the car in Park, got out, and scanned the area. The first squad was a bit scattered throughout the neighborhood. I locked eyes on the guys helping the family load the minivan. I shouted, “Get those people in their car and get them going down the road. Now!”

  They both looked at me and gestured to the dad as if he was the problem. I ran over to him; he was trying to fit one more suitcase in the trunk. The Tetris game that was the trunk was already full. I grabbed his shoulder, “Sir, you need to get in the car and get down the road. I don’t know if creatures will be pouring out of the portal to our immediate west or not, but you have run out of time.”

  “But what about all my business suits? Are you saying this because you want to ransack my house? You fucking people. You just want to take my stuff.”

  I slapped him hard. “Sir, I don’t give two shits about your possessions. I care about getting you and your family to safety.”

  He went cocked his arm to punch me, but then two guns cocked right near us. “Sir, if you strike the Captain I will shoot you dead right here. He is doing this to save lives. So, listen to him. Go grab your wife, get back out here, and drive towards Fenton.”

  I turned to look at both my soldiers and then back at the suitcase nut. I stared him down. He stared back for a moment. Sweat beaded up on my forehead ever so slightly. Then he looked away, threw down the suitcase, and stormed off to his house. One of my guys followed him.

  My pocket started buzzing; then I could hear Nora’s muffled voice starting up. I grabbed hold of it and pulled it out, “Neal, what was that explosion?”

  “I think its one of the portals to the west of me in Kirkwood. I need you to let the 2nd and 3rd squads up here know to shift towards me at the Northwestern end of Oakland. Shit could get dicey today. My guess is they have figured out how to make lots of vehicles go boom.”

  “Neal, they are smarter than us. Give a creature enough levels and they will gain enough intelligence and wisdom stats to piece together our technology and easy ways to wreck it.”

  “Fuck, You’re right. I need you to also alert the other squads let them know to be extra vigilant while out looking for lupin.”

  “Will do. They have scoured well over half of Fenton already and found four more groups. We have losses, but they aren’t like yesterday’s fight.”

  “Good to know. Keep me in the loop.”

  I held the stone in my hand, and concentrated on Ted. After a few brief seconds the stone mentally clicked over, “Ted, we need to get this half of the squad together. We should form up at Katnessa’s as soon as this family gets down the road. I have a bad feeling that the situation is only going to get worse.”

  “Sure thing, Captain.” Ted said briefly before the stone went completely silent.

  The situation felt to be going fast and slow at the same time. The movement of the soldiers across the street looked sluggish as they fell back while Ted covered them from Katnessa’s front porch. Gun fire started sounding closer at a breakneck pace. Troops were shooting at something headed our way. They were clearly in pursuit, but I couldn’t communicate with them. The kids from the family were walking to the car, but not as fast as they needed to be. Then it all snapped into focus.

  I motioned to the solder closest to me as I reached out to get the kids in the back seat. “Come on kids, time to get in the car.” Surprisingly, they obeyed implicitly. My anxiety and fear response were kicked in, and maybe theirs was too. Three kids managed to get themselves in seats and seatbelts with minimal fuss. I always remembered it taking longer when I was a kid. The house’s front door swung open and then the mom and dad finally came out, panic and anger written all over their faces.

  Unfortunately for everyone that’s the moment that we finally saw the first giant gut creatures outside the confines of a building. It bounded clear over a two story house across the street. Dirt and grass smashed under it as it landed only to face towards the parents and it bounded forth again; it cleared to halfway across the neighborhood street from the middle of the opposite front lawn in one jump. The concrete thudded under its bulk and saliva sprayed liberally from it’s open mouth. One more smaller bounce and it’s squat tree trunk legs landed less than ten feet away, just on the other side of the van. The edge of two of it’s tentacle slapped up against the side windows of the minivan leaving distorted slime streaks in across the whole view.

  We responded fast pulling rifles up, but the kids were in the minivan, and we could hit them or each other in crossfire. My guy at the front door stepped and saw the problem. His eyes got big and his body went into motion to tackle the wife, who was closest to him, to the ground so that she didn’t get eaten. Then, as everything and everyone was still in motion the monster leaped again, this time close to the ground. His mouth was lined up with the husband, and he wasted no time gripping him and their baby held in his hands with its tentacles to shove both into its mouth. At the same time one of its tentacles on the right side of its mouth stretched out to snag the arm of the woman. My guy, Dan, tackled her to the ground to help her slip out of its grip.

  The soldier next to me opened up fire now that it was past everyone. Bullets bit into its feet and back from Dan’s large caliber rifle. The sound was deafening as the barrel was closer to my ear that I care to have. I dropped to a knee and used assess; this was my first time having uses available when one of these showed up.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Demonic Muncher, War Beast, Level 11

  Fuck! Well at least we know creatures that aren’t exactly humanoid can gain classes. Soldiers then began to fire into it that had been crossing the street. We simply hoped that it’s skin wasn’t thick enough to cause a bullet to ricochet. Right near me the kids were screaming from inside the minivan. Their voices blended with the gunfire to temporarily deafen me. I couldn’t hear much of anything at that moment. The combined gunfire affected it’s trajectory slightly causing it to crash into the garage and the husband’s Mercedes. Metal shrapnel from the car blew out from the demonic muncher showering me, Dan, and the wife with metal scraps. I finally added in my gunfire. Dan pulled his pistol and started shooting it as well. It’s tentacles flailed about finding purchase on the car and anywhere else in the room it could as it attempted to stand back up on it’s two feet. It’s feet slipped and it kept falling back into the car it crushed. I let the rest of them keep pouring fire into it while I turned to get around the back side of the minivan. That woman and her three remaining kids had to get out of the kill zone.

  In reaching the back end of the minivan I saw two more demonic munchers approaching the house across the street. They were jumping nearly a hundred feet into the air. There was a helicopter trailing the munchers, firing machine guns down on them. I stepped past the cover of the minivan while trying to signal the two guys out in the street. They stopped firing long enough to turn around and see what I was seeing. Their feet were moving near instantaneously, churning into a sprint over to me. I felt the vehicle shifting behind me and chanced a quick glance back. The mom was finally getting into the minivan. We all stepped away from the minivan to give her a bit of room to pull out of the driveway.

  I got down on one knee and activating my newest ability. Chaotic mess would be my first impression. I saw five phantom demonic munchers slowly coalesce into three and then two. Math equations representing things that I had no clue about displayed and constantly evolved on the edges of my vision. I just kept aiming for the open mouth and the images to condense to one. Then it landed through the roof and the attic into the second floor of the house across the street. As it opened its mouth to do something I couldn’t hear, both remaining images immediately condensed to one through the window it was behind, and I got a green star in the center of its mouth. I fired. I couldn’t see the bullet, but clearly the bullet went where I wanted it to go. The monster fell backwards its tentacles flailed outwards as it furiously tried to understand what hurt it so badly. The ability ended and pain immediately went up to my head like a slurpee induced brain freeze. I closed my eyes to readjust and make the pain go away. Shit! That fucking hurt!

  I gave myself a slow count to 3 before opening my eyes. I still couldn’t hear anything, but the scene looked different. The demonic muncher in the second story window was still there. I had no clue what was keeping it there. The other one had cleared the house to be gunned down by the helicopter. Thanks, National Guard air support.

  Then the helicopter was covered in webbing. Thick strands of fucking webbing. I followed the webs back to their source to see two giant spiders shooting webbing out of an appendage attached to their backside. Great. Fucking Directional Webbing Blasters. The blades of the helicopter didn’t slow, but the pilot and everyone else were completely covered. The helicopter started moving erratically, weighed down with a ton of webbing. It lurched to its right, away and across the street, crashing into a gas station. The fuel pumps ignited, and a new explosion rocked the ground. The helicopter blades split under the pressure and flew out at various angles, almost hitting the spiders in return.

  The Spiders were a solid distance from us, but that could change at any moment. I also noticed a blinking notification at the corner of my vision. I paused to look at it.

  Level 3 109% to Next Level

  I didn’t have time to do a level advancement. It took too much out of me. My head was still throbbing slightly from my ability. I clearly see the downsides of using that ability. I glanced back at the demonic muncher in the garage to see it never got up. Our axe wielding soldier ended up chopping a leg off to make sure it was dead.

  A muzzle flashed from the second floor of Katnessa’s house. My eyes seemed to trail across the street seeking what the bullet might have hit. The horse sized spider slipped from its perch atop the house and stumbled to the ground below. I still couldn’t hear anything clearly, but it’s scream pierced through all the other noise and static cluttering my hearing. The minivan took that moment to pull back out of the driveway all the way to the other side of the street in reverse. I could see the freaked-out expression on the woman’s face through her windshield. The look mirrored the terror I felt deep inside.

  I didn’t have the luxury of running. We still needed to evacuate Katnessa and all her cats. From the top of the spider I could now see 4 small creatures riding on it. They had green skin and pointy ears. They were too far to use assess, but they looked like fucking goblins. God Damnit, even more bullshit to deal with. I would have loved to do my level up now, if only for the extra health.

  All of a sudden the spider and much of the front of the house was encased in webs. I turned to look for the source to find Rick using the wand Nora gave him. About time. The Spider, its goblins, and the Demonic Muncher were all stuck inside the webbing. Sadly, the spider on top of the house was on the fringe of the effects, so it just walked across the outside of the webbing and down to ground level.

  I used my new ability a second time and took aim. There weren’t as many phantom images of the spider as before, but I saw it scurry rather quickly towards Rick and Ted. Just it got onto the edge of the front lawn I fired into one of its six shining eyes. It stopped dead in its tracks and then slowly pivoted towards me. I could the five remaining eyes all focus on me as I came out of the ability. The pain wasn’t as bad the second time, but it probably had more to do with all the adrenaline running through me than improved use of the ability.

  From atop the spider three of the goblins started firing arrows at us. Two missed went over us as the little goblins seemed jostled by the pivot of the spider. The third one hit me in the chest. Or it would have if it weren’t for my ring of lesser force armor followed up by my bullet proof vest. The first seemed to slow the impact enough for the second to stop it entirely from piercing my skin. It clattered to the ground as it couldn’t dig deep enough to stay inside. I blinked. Fuck. Magic armor rocks! I didn’t bother using my ability again, as it took too long for the aiming portion. I unleashed my clip on the spider along with everyone else nearby. Then the Muzzle Flash from the second floor again. The spider was knocked sideways away from the house with that shot. I really wanted to know what gun that was. The goblins died very quickly and the spider went down just after, before we got stuck in melee. That was all far too close for comfort, and we still had more creatures to deal with inside the webbing.