Page 106 of Pick Me Up On Tuesdays

"Let go," I snapped, twisting against his hold. But he didn't. His eyes were sharp, scanning the crowd like a predator searching for an escape route. Then, he did something that sent a chill down my spine.

He cursed. Under his breath, but with enough weight that I felt something was terribly wrong.

"Run."

"What?"

"RUN!"

I didn't get a chance to argue before he was pulling me, shoving past dancers and intoxicated patrons, weaving through bodies like he’d done this before. The flashing lights blurred, the pounding music distorting into an erratic heartbeat in my ears.

Then, in one swift motion, he yanked open the back exit, and we spilled into the alleyway.

The air outside was thick with dampness, carrying the scent of seawater and old garbage. The glow of the neon signs barely reached us here, casting eerie, fractured shadows on the brick walls. My breath came in quick gasps, my heart pounding like a drum against my ribs.

"What the hell is going on?" I demanded between breaths.

"I’ll tell you later," Ethan said, his voice tight.

That’s when I heard it.

A heavy, bone-rattling thud—followed by another. And another. Footsteps. But not natural ones.

I whipped my head around just in time to see them emerge from the doorway we had just escaped through.

Two monsters.

Too big. Too wrong. Their hulking forms stretched high enough to make the doorway look small. Their bodies were wrapped in something that looked like flesh but moved like liquid, shifting and pulsing like it couldn’t decide what shape it wanted to take. Their arms were grotesquely long, ending in clawed fingers that scraped against the walls as they pushed forward.

But it was their faces that made my blood freeze.

Their eyes burned like molten gold, swirling unnaturally, as if fire itself lived inside their sockets. Their mouths—too wide for their faces—stretched open in a twisted, unnatural grin, revealing rows upon rows of jagged, glowing teeth. Not white, not yellow—glowing. Like embers smoldering in a deep, black abyss.

And then, they moved.

Not in a way they should have.

Not in a way anything natural moved.

They slithered forward in jerky, unpredictable motions, limbs bending at impossible angles, as if their bones were constantly shifting beneath their shifting skin.

Ethan cursed again, louder this time.

I barely registered my own voice when I yelled, "Who did you piss off this time?!"

No answer.

Because we were still running.

We twisted and turned through the alleyways, the sound of the creatures' pursuit echoing behind us. They didn’t run—they glided, their movements silent but swift, like shadows that had slipped free from the laws of reality.

Then, just when I thought we’d gained some distance—

We turned a corner and slammed into something else.

Something bigger.

A third one.

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