Kate
Rational thought isn’t possible in this moment. My brain is zeroed in on one thing alone: Ow. Freaking owie, owie, owie. Everything hurts. Then, slowly, I start to become more aware.
I’m on the floor. I’m vomiting. Milk? I’m in a puddle of white milky fluid. How did I get here? Was I out drinking with friends? My heart pounds and my brain works desperately to use what little my tunnel vision is offering me to explain what’s happening.
I see my hands. They are wet. I’m on my hands and knees and I’m vomiting. Dry heaving? Did I drown? It’s cold in this room and I’m soaking wet. I hear others around me coughing and gagging as well. The lights are bright. Bright, white lights. That seems familiar. Are we in a hospital? The floor beneath me is metal. Why am I here?
Sucking in air, I tilt my head to look around me. There are other girls, like me. We’re all on the floor. At least one of them is naked. They’re close to me and I’m disoriented, so I just see a blur of arms, legs and hanging heads. Someone is asking for help. Another is crying. I’m still struggling to breathe. My lungs feel like they are on fire and no matter how hard I try I can’t get enough air.
There are other sounds around me that I’m becoming aware of now. A low rumble, like a growl. It’s constant. And something closer, a strange popping and gurgling sound. I strain my eyes and my head rolls around trying to find the source. I see something. Something fat and green and covered in slime. My eyes connect with it and my adrenaline soars a notch higher than it already was. This something is not human.
It’s like some kind of frog-crab monster, the gurgling sound is coming from it. It shifts from side to side and gurgles madly. My feeble lungs try to gasp. I throw myself back towards the other girls, our bodies knocking together. This catches their attention and that’s when the screaming starts. And this frog-crab monster… call me crazy, but I think it looks excited. Is that gurgling sound laughter?
We’re all still on the floor but I hold my arms out, pushing the other girls back behind me. I feel their hands clutching me like I’m some sort of life preserver. I dimly wonder how the screaming women are managing the lung power it takes to belt it out like that. Unfortunately, I think this is one of those ‘you can scream all you want, no one will hear you’ situations. I struggle to my feet, my legs feel like jelly but I keep my arms out, in some sort of pathetic attempt to shield these other women.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” one of the girls is saying. I don’t know how she can speak, rational thought is still something I can only aspire to in this moment. ‘Bad dream’ pops into my head. In dreams you can never tell if you are dreaming or awake, but when you’re awake… well it’s pretty damned obvious you’re awake. I’m wide awake right now. Or maybe I’m dead and this is hell. That’s a possibility.
My brain takes another step forward in assessing the situation again. There are bars surrounding us. We are caged. In a prison? Beyond the bars I see two more creatures. A daddy version of the frog-crab thing in the cage with us: bigger, fatter, slimier. Standing next to him is… well… it’s a straight up, fucking, gargoyle. And it’s growling and baring some massive fangs. Its wings go from being tucked at its back to spreading their full span. It’s giant. It’s speaking to the daddy frog-crab, but in some language I can’t understand. Baby frog looks over at this interaction. I realize it is standing in front of an open door to the cage we are in. And fight or flight? My body kicks in because my brain has checked the fuck out and I rush baby frog. I slam into what feels like sticky, cold pudding and almost lose my balance and fall forward with him. Luckily, his spindly bottom legs crumble beneath him and his bulbous body topples onto the ground just outside the cage. I grab the door and slam the cage shut. Then, I’m instantly embarrassed of my dead-end plan.
I jump back toward the other girls. Some are sobbing. “What’s happening?” one asks. Another is repeating her, “oh fuck” mantra. I notice two of them are completely nude. The naked girls are cowering on the floor to cover their bodies. I look down at myself, because I am actually not even sure if I’m wearing clothes or not. PJ shorts and a cami, plus underwear and a sports bra. I feel a wave of relief. I’m soaked and now slimy from baby frog, but it’s better than nothing. I hesitate briefly before I tear off my cami and toss it to one girl and send my shorts to the other. The shock is coming off us all now and the others help the naked girls up and try to shield them as they cover their bodies. We are silent, except for the occasional sobs and incoherent mutterings.
I quickly take in everyone’s appearance. It looks as if no one has regular clothes on. Just PJs for those of us who are lucky enough to have clothes. In some way or another we are all gripping each other for support or connection or something. Some type of silent camaraderie is going on between us. Without speaking we all scan wildly around the cage for something, anything to help us. A weapon? A back door? I’m not even paying attention to the monsters in the room with us. I am just searching for anything to help. Then the popping and gurgling starts up again. Baby frog is at the gate.
He is watching us, amused I think. I don’t know if the noise he is making is speech or laughter, or nothing other than gross. He taps the bars and makes a movement to open the cage. I leap to the door and push hard as I can against it so he can’t open it. “Help!” I scream and it takes only a millisecond for the other girls to respond and we are all pushing against this gate to keep the monster out. I look up and I see his wide set eyes. His mouth opens in a toothless smile which stretches to the junction of his jaws on either side of his face. He could probably fit a basketball in his big, gross mouth. He reaches in the cage and runs one of his weird two fingered slimy pincher, hand things across our arms and bodies causing us to falter. Taking that as his opportunity, he pushes the gate open and snatches one of the girls--a blonde one, by the arm and starts to pull her out.
“No!” I scream, she screams. We’re all screaming. I try to pull her back, it’s not helping. The other girls try to hold her too. I switch my attention to baby frog and attack him. My balled fists slide over the slime covering him, his gaze turns to me and he lets the other girl go. All the girls fall backwards against the floor now that they aren’t pulling against his strength. And he grabs me.
I’m out the gate with him before any of the girls can get to their feet. He flings me hard into a chair just beyond the cage and starts to clamp me in. I strain against him and the clamps. I start to think about screaming. It’s this weird surreal moment where I waver back and forth over the idea of whether or not I should scream… then I see this thing unfold from baby frog’s abdomen. It rolls out like a butterfly’s tongue and starts reaching, like a snake’s body might, up my leg and towards me. This time I don’t have to think about it. I scream. Just as I do, a deafening crack of thunder shakes the room. A spear or something bursts through baby frog’s chest, spraying slime and viscera all over me. And I realize it isn’t thunder I hear, the gargoyle has just went berserk and the sound is coming from him.