Survivor

Her hands trembled. Exhaustion racked her body. Dusty air choked her lungs as cobwebs clung to her hair and face. The skin on her hands was cracked and bleeding, her muscles groaning in protest of every movement. Her clothes were torn and the pack she wore held on by the merest threads. Her rifle lay at her feet, its stock cracked, its ammunition spent. She sat against the rotting beams of the hayloft she cowered in, sucking in air, trying to stifle every cough and groan. Her body begged her to rest, to cease its struggle, to simply drift off into unconsciousness. But she could not, for it was still out there, and she knew it would come for her soon.

It had killed the rest, her friends, her comrades. Slaughtering them with brutal efficiency. But her it toyed with, like a cat with its dinner. She had fled through the forest, its pursuit unrelenting. It accosted her at every turn to leave a cut here, a bruise there, but never to kill. It was frighteningly fast and terribly cunning, but it was also arrogant. It had not expected her to fight back, to surprise it with the butt of her rifle. Wood had cracked under the strain, sending the creature to the ground, bloodless gash rent in its wraith-like face. Still, it had stirred, cold fingers digging into the earth, red-lit sockets staring in hatred. A banshee's scream ripped from its throat and again she fled, heedless of stone and root underfoot. She ran for an age, specter's howl spurring her onward till she broke out of the forest and into a windswept plain, its golden grass gently waving around the grey husk of a wooden shelter. Now here, in this barn, she huddled, seeking refuge in a remnant of a world that was no more.

The wind picked up, old, rotting wood groaning in protest. The grass outside hissed under the increasing gale. Time passed. Her heartbeat slowed and aches began to numb. Her breath steadied, only to freeze in her lungs as rusted hinges screeched in dissent, the barn door opening slowly to flood the dust-hazed interior with streams of setting sunlight. The doors laboriously ground to a halt, rusted metal refusing to flex any further. She pawed her pockets and belt, looking for something, anything, she could use to fight the approaching horror. Metallic claws scraped against the splintering floor as the creature sniffed the air through featureless slits, searching for a sign of its quarry. Her hand grasped a jacket pocket, feeling a familiar cylindrical object. She let her breath out slowly, reaching for the rifle, not daring to make a noise. Clutching it to her as if it was her only salvation, she pulled back the bolt, sending a spent casing clattering to the ground. She gasped, and a guttural bark answered, heavy steps drawing near. Her bloodied and bruised hands forced the slide forward, locking round in place as cold, dead hands grasped the beams of the hayloft floor. Sinewy arms pulled the creature up, ever so slowly, to let filament eyes peer into the murky hayloft. It saw her, yet she sat still. She had no strength left to heft the rifle, her vision was still too blurred to aim. So she sat and she waited. The abomination pulled itself over the edge, a gurgling chuckle held deep in its emaciated chest. It crept closer, hand reaching for her leg. Still, she waited. The skeletal hand grasped her ankle, and her finger curled around the trigger. Pin stuck casing with an explosion of sound and a flash of light.

And then...

Silence.