His foot hit the floor hard, ruining his stealth. Downstairs the whoosh of air rushing down the hall was the only indication of the creature’s approach. Mike took his eyes from the stairs as he glanced down at the supplies. A streak rounded the bannister; the creature moved so fast that Mike could just barely see it. He only got a lock on the thing when it’s second foot hit the staircase.
Bill’s trap worked perfectly—even skipping two steps, the monster’s feet soon landed on one grounded and one hot stair. It sprung backwards and disappeared through the doorway to the living room. Mike looked at his gun, as if his failure to fire had been its fault. Resting his finger hard on the trigger, Mike crept to the edge of the stairs, stepping carefully past Bill’s bloody corpse, and looked down the stairs. The only sign of the monster’s attempt to climb the stairs was a splotch of blood on the wall.
As Mike watched, the sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom step twitched. He guessed what would happen next, and it came true almost instantly. The monster ripped at the cords supplying power to the trap and the sheets tugged through the railings. A buzzing, snapping sound erupted as the trap shorted out.
Desperation flooded Mike’s thoughts. The stair trap had worked, but only once, and the creature would be back very soon. He remembered the energy-absorbing device that Bill had placed carefully behind his now empty chair. The earlier caveats about it’s potential downsides faded in Mike’s new state of panic. He stepped backwards, away from the stairs, and nearly tripped over Bill’s remaining leg. Keeping the shotgun trained on the stairs, Mike knelt and plugged in the device as the creature pulled the last of the foil from the stairs.
It hummed and pulsed, but gave no other indication that it was working. Mike smelled ozone wafting up from the device’s antenna. He stepped over to the side to get further away from Bill’s leg hole and so he could have a better view of the stairs.
When the creature appeared again, it moved slowly. Mike watched it round the bannister this time and pause at the bottom of the stairs. Aside from its enormous size, it looked human as it grabbed the rail and mounted the first step.
Mike raised the shotgun. He pointed it at the monster’s chest.
It paused on the stairs and pulled its hand from the bannister, holding it up for Mike to see. The fingers eradicated by his earlier shot had been replaced by tiny, baby-like appendages. Mike considered the absurd digits, almost hypnotized as the creature eyed him. He only braced himself and reset his grip on the gun when the creature lowered its hand again and climbed another stair.
With the shotgun trembling in his shaky hands, Mike waited before pulling the trigger. He couldn’t hold himself back anymore. With the creature mid-stride, on the third step, Mike’s finger twitched, giving enough of a tug to fire the weapon.
The blast rocked Mike’s exhausted, tensed muscles. When he lowered the barrel back down to his enemy, Mike saw the damage from his shot. The creature still stood on the stairs, but instead of climbing, it simply looked down at its own chest.
Bouncing off ribs and tearing through skin and muscle, the shot had carved a deep rut in the monster’s pectorals. Mike could see part of its beating heart and swelling lung. He held his ground and pumped the shotgun. When he raised it again, he took careful aim at the standing monster and shot for the center of crater that his last shot had made. Forgetting to exhale and squeeze the trigger, Mike’s shot pulled up and to the right slightly. The new wound overlapped the first, but barely. This time, the monster wavered backward with the impact.
Mike didn’t waste any time, he pumped and pulled the trigger again. A dry click was the only result. He backed up a step and looked down at the weapon, realizing that he had shot five times, the gun’s capacity. The creature rose up and ascended one more step. Mike backed away and tucked the shotgun under his arm so he could dig a hand into his pocket. Without looking away from the creature’s slow progress, Mike fumbled to get his hand into his pants pocket for several seconds before he gave up. He reached up for his shirt pocket and pulled out two shells.
His fingers felt numb as they tried to feed a shell into the magazine. The first shell shook out of his panicked hand and tumbled to the floor. Before it bounced on the carpet he had already started to align the next. Mike backed up another step and exhaled, managing to click it home. As Mike fumbled with the second shell, the monster’s torso cleared the top of the stairs. It wavered and swayed as the creature’s life flowed out from the wounds in its chest. Weighing his options, Mike continued to load the gun instead of shooting the two rounds he had managed to load.
The creature fell facedown, landing on Bill’s body. Mike had backed nearly ten feet down the hall as he worked on pushing the third round into the shotgun’s magazine. He watched the creature rock and spasm. It’s paroxysms slowed, and Mike felt a glimmer of hope that his adversary was dying.
Conditioned by books and movies his entire adult life, Mike never once assumed that the battle was complete. He finished loading the fourth and fifth shells as he stared at the creature. Fully loaded, he raised the gun and took aim at the top of the creature’s skull and marveled again at its size. From his position he could only see the head, shoulders, arms, and part of the back—the rest of the beast was draped around the corner, down the staircase.
He settled on the head, hoping the the rounds would have some effect on the giant skull. Mike aimed at the jet black, matted hair and pulled the trigger. He pumped the shotgun but his finger fell away from the trigger. Mike was stupefied by what he saw: as the shot hit its skull, the creature pushed its head up, away from Bill’s body. Bill’s shirt now had a ragged, bloody hole, and gore streaked the monster’s face. Facedown on Bill’s corpse, the creature had been feeding on Bill’s flesh. While Mike had thought it was convulsing in death throes, it had fed and regained some strength. Evidence of the regeneration showed on the creature’s chest where flesh had re-grown to protect the monster’s organs once more.
Mike blinked hard and shook his head to snap himself out of his stupor. He raised the gun again and aimed at the newly healed chest and fired.
The creature reacted instantly. Its long arm swooped down and plucked the paranormal attenuator from the floor. Mike got off one more shot to the creature’s chest, but before Mike could shoot again, the metal box was flying through the air towards his head. The dangling antenna fluttered behind, dragged along by its cord. Mike ducked and raised his hands defensively, taking the brunt of the missile with the shotgun.
He tried to re-aim. The giant hurled the chair and it crashed into Mike’s pelvis and knees. He dodged to the side, to avoid being hit by the detector Bill had built to track the creature. Mike ducked into the master bedroom just as another chair crashed down the hall.
Leading with the gun, Mike popped out into the hallway and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The blow from the amplifier had damaged the action of the shotgun and the trigger would no longer squeeze. The cans of soda buzzed by Mike’s head and exploded against the wall at the end of the hall. He pulled back into the bedroom and tried to focus. Now that he’d injured the creature, his instinct to fight was powerful. Without a working shotgun, fighting would be suicide.