Fear Feast

It Came From the River: Main Course

It Came From the River: Main Course

The creature rammed itself against the kitchen door. The force of this sent Hartley flying backwards. He hit his head on the counter as he fell to the floor with a splash. The water seemed to move much faster, gushing into the house, now that the creature was here. Hartley’s head was throbbing. His vision blurred. He crawled away as quickly as he could. The creature advanced on him, its crab like body moved with ease and grace through the shallow water. Hartley, with his head against the wall, was trapped. He looked up and gazed upon the thing, seeing it clearly for the first time.

It was male. Hartley knew this without question. The face of the creature was a mass of sharp angles: a pointed chin, tapered jaw and high cheekbones. Its eyes were sightless and white and rimmed by dark lashes. A mop of wild, black hair crowned its head. The creature shrieked. It had a mouth full of fangs. Its human torso and arms were muscled, hairless and white as paper as though natural light had never touched the creature. The torso ended in the huge shelled body of a blue crab, pincers and all. That shell looked hard as stone and those pincers gleamed in the dim light of the kitchen. The beast neared Hartley, scuttling slowly, listening.

Hartley did the only thing he could think of. He kicked his legs out, splashing water against the adjacent wall. The creature paused, turning its head towards the sound. Hartley dashed across the room, narrowly avoiding a pincer that tried to block his path as he skated through the water. He rushed to the sink. Two spoons, an empty glass and a small carving knife. The latter two items would have to do. 

He grabbed the glass and hurled it at the creature’s torso. The sound of the glass whizzing through the air alerted its sensitive ears. It spun around. The glass hit its arm instead and a small trickle of blue blood formed there. The beast snarled and charged at Hartley, now confident of his position. Hartley wielded the knife, stretched himself to his full height and plunged the blade into the creature’s neck. As the knife entered the creature’s flesh, eliciting rivulets of blue blood, the creature bit down on Hartley’s arm, its fangs sliding easily through Hartley’s flesh. Hartley screamed in anguish, dropping the knife. Blue and red blood flowed together. 

The creature released Hartley, taking a chunk of Hartley’s arm with him. Hartley fell to the ground, clutching his mangled right arm with his left hand. The creature gripped its wounded neck with both hands. It scuttled away. It was retreating. Hartley was not sure why though. It seemed as though its neck had already begun to heal. The edges of the wound were pulling together on their own accord, the blue blood ceasing to flow. That same blue blood coated Hartley’s injured arm. He wiped it off, dipping it in the still rising flood water. His heart was racing. The edges of his vision grew dark.