Witch Cat

The creature was absolutely massive, as massive as it could be. Miss Macey couldn’t stare for long. She wasn’t scared of it catching her, no, but she had to get her brothers to safety, and stopping to use magic might cost her her life, and theirs. She saw the three boys leap over the brick gate and start sprinting across the road to where the tombstones and swathes of willow and sycamore trees were. She hurtled herself across the gate as fast as she could, and not a moment too soon. 

The mutant let out a groan as it hauled itself over the wall, but the many bones and ribs and bits of debris sticking out of it caught on the brick work. It halted, as if confused why it wasn’t moving. Miss Macey was enough distance away to turn around and watch, and she nearly threw up on the ground right then. 

It was decaying. But, quickly as if suddenly someone had pressed fast forward on it’s natural processes. Bits of flesh and guts were falling away and the blood coming out of it was black and thick like syrup. It screeched at Miss Macey as it began to rip itself in half on the wall, but after a moment more of struggling it simply began to melt. The bones were all that stayed solid, but if it wasn’t a calcium structure, it puddled into a smelly mess on the ground, until nothing remained but a warped, fucked up skeleton.

Miss Macey stared at it in shock for a second, shocked to her core. What..... had just happened? She had never seen a mutant do that before! 

“Boys.... Boys?” she called out, turning around to find her brothers. They were fine, huddled behind a grave stone, but another mutant was stumbling up to them. Victor was watching it warily in case it struck but it too seemed to be... fallinng apart, melting with each step it took. After just a few more fumbling steps it collapsed too, flesh and guts melting away from the deformed skeleton.

The trouble began when she was crawling through the streets. Many of the mutants were not smart enough to chase a slow moving car that didn’t have any lights on; they couldn’t smell the prey inside, and weren’t smart enough to do anything except bump into the car, occasionally jump on top of it only to leap away into the darkness. It was nerve wracking, but they were halfway home already.

Miss Macey had done her brothers the service of plugging their ears and blindfolding them while the car crawled along; a portal would have been easier, but the risk of a mutant coming through was too great, and the sheer number a portal would have attracted would overwhelm even her. So far so good....

Until she saw a bigger mutant show itself from down the street. It was one of the long-tailed ones, but so much bigger than she thought. She put the car in park and turned it off immediatley, letting it sit cold and quiet on the sidewalk where she had been driving it. The mutant didn’t notice her at all, and was just dragging itself along, shoving smaller mutants, old cars and trash cans out of the way. Her heart had practically frozen in her chest as she watchd it get closer.

“Sissy? Why did we stop?” Manny whispered, taking out his ear plugs. 

“Shut up and stay still.” she hissed, ears flicking back as the mutant’s strange, swollen head swung towards them. Her brothers shifted uneasily, feeling the multitude of eyes on them, but the larger mutant passed by without a second glance. 

Miss Macey sighed with relief and pushd the engine start button, letting the car hum to life quietly. Thank god for 2018 model Toyota’s. Slowly, slowly she began to crawl forward in the vehicle again, the danger seemingly passed.

That is, until a second mutant appeared. Even larger than the first. It’s face looked lke it was... covered in....

“Are those hands??” Manny wailed, lurching into the front seat to stare out at the other mutant. Victor and Jaquin had taken off their blind folds as well, and were staring and screaming in terror as the two mutants charged at each other, clashing head-on like raging bulls. Miss Macey screamed as well and put her foot to the floor, letting the cars tires screech before they shot off down the street. The thump of mutant bodies underneath turned into whitenoise, until one of the tires was popped by a stray thorn of bone or fang. 

“Victor, open a portal to the house in 100 yards NOW.” Miss Macey screeched, fighting with the wheel so the car didn’t spin out or flip. Her biggest little brother nodded and threw his hands out, the magic homing sigil lighting up in his palms. It opened a rip in front of them and not a moment too soon. The car went flying through the portal and practically crashed nose-first into the lawn. And by some wicked miracle, the portal closed before any mutants could leap through. The car sat in silence as the engine died, and the rest of the tires deflated softly. Miss Macey had smashed her face into the air bag hard, and she groaned as she pressed a hand to her bleeding snout. Victor was upside down in the floor of the passenger side, but alive and awake. 

“Uh.. I think the crash brought some friends.” Jaquin said, starting to stutter with fear as he looked behind them at the electric fence. A small band of mutants paced outside of it, occasionally getting shocked so hard that they smoked or died. But there were more coming, feeding on their fallen mutant kind, or pacing alongside the fence to look for a way in. 

“Get inside.” Macey groaned, practically falling out of the car in her haste. “The house has a ‘mergency lock down protocol, come on. I said get insi-!”

Her worse were cut off when a large shard of bone peirced through her shoulder like a giant thorn snagging a bug. The bones in her body cracked as it splintered through her shoulder blade and poked out of the other side, making Manny start to scream again as he ran towards the house. 

Miss Macey knew that wasn’t good. She was awake enough to see Victor and Jaquin hesitating to run inside and leave her there; they knew she would wake up, but would she wake up as herself, or a mutant? 

She turned back to look at the fence as she collapsed, and saw another large mutant. It was just tall enough to look over the fence, and a hole in it’s face was slowly growing another bone shard to shoot. She could feel the burning sensation of what she assumed was the infection trying to spread, and she could feel the familiar hum of death making her body grow heavy. The pain was so much that all she could do was gasp and hold the bone shard tightly in her hands.