Fifty Ninth Friday Flash: Tiny Terrors

Ceramic Figurines by shigeki hayashi

*This is a follow up to Endless War, Desolation and Bear Necessities

It had been a week since Amy had escaped Sergeant Whiskers. A week of hard slog. She was determined to put as much distance between him and her as possible, there was a good chance he was dead, but she wasn't going to take the chance.

Amy looked around from the rise in the road, no sign of him, no sign of anyone, just the overgrown road she had travelled along winding its way down the side of the mountain. She breathed a sigh of relief, ruffled bear's ears, and carried on up toward the town the signs had been promising wasn't too far away. She was hoping it wasn't bad as the others she had encountered.

Coming in closer she saw that most of the buildings had been blasted to bits, but just as she was about to give up hope and head onto the next town she stumbled across a supermarket. Compared to the other buildings it was still at least standing, and even from a distance she could see that the shelves were still packed.

“Oh, look bear! Food.”

Bear just growled. He had been rather grumpy lately. She hoped any food they found would calm him down a bit.

Amy switched her powersuit to manual and moved towards the surprisingly still intact glass store front. Even through the closed doors she could smell the stench of rotten food, but hopefully the tinned goods were still good. Extending a blade from her forearm she pushed it between the doors and wedged them open. Bear sniffed the air and ran in.

“Wait!” But he wasn't listening and was gone. She just hoped he didn't eat something that would make him sick.

It was deathly silent inside. No in store music to grate on your ears, no shoppers to navigate around, it gave her the creeps. She shook her head, no reason why it should. She was born during the war, raised in an army base. All she knew from the life before was through educational videos. Looking around she wondered if they had actually lost anything, but she had no time to contemplate. Her suit began to beep. She switched on her heads up display. There were other life forms in the building and they were heading towards her. She wasn't overly concerned. It was most probably racoons or something, what did she have to worry about? She was in a suit of powered armour.

Moments later small black forms launched at her from the shelves. A sense of dread shot through her. It couldn't be! They were just a myth. Not supposed to be real, but yet there they were cutting into her armour with power torches. She threw two of them off and legged it away. She just couldn't fight them. But they followed. If she didn't do something soon they would get through the armour and to her. She only had one chance. Backed up to the end of the aisle and with the little armoured suits advancing towards her she bypassed all the fail safes and engaged the process. One of them leaped for her face. Its red electronic eye cold and soulless. She watched in horror as its powertorch cut through her helmet and visor.

She pressed a button. The EMP burst into life. The tiny powered suits on and around her jerked and fell over, the red light in their electronic eyes fading. Her own suit sagged. She checked herself as she clambered out of the suffocating suit, no cuts she could see. Just as she was about to rush away and find bear she began to hear a strange noise she hadn't heard in a long time. It was babies and they were crying. So it was true. Their immature brains being used as cheap processing power and drugs pumped into their blood to prevent growth. Abominations, but maybe, just maybe they could be saved. She quickly dashed over and used her combat knife to open up the face plate of the first one. It was a baby maybe a year old. She quickly did the same until they were all free. Five of them in total. Five new mouths to feed.

Amy wondered if bear would like their new companions. She was hoping they would bring out his soft side.