05

WHAT THEY SAW

Chapter 4: What They Saw

Chapter Four: What They Saw

Kitee, North Karelia, Finland

Lydia roughly grabbed Floor and Esa. "Don't move," she whispered. "Look up there."

Floor followed Lydia's gaze. There in the corner of a mostly put together building was a creature creeping through an open window. It looked like a lizard or something. She would have called it a snake, but it seemed to have a tail and legs. It's green tinted skin stood out against the early morning snow.

"What is that?" Floor whispered back to Lydia as it disappeared into the building.

"I don't know. I think it can kill."

Floor fought the urge to roll her eyes. Of course it could kill, anything was capable of being a killer. "Have you seen it before?" As soon as the words left Floor's mouth, she realized something. She had seen this creature before.

In Joensuu...

Kaidan ran up the stairs pulling Flynn behind him. Flynn winced as he hit each step. Kaidan really needed to be gentler.

The girls were following them. Flynn smiled as they gained on them. They were even prettier up close.

Kaidan kept glancing back at the girls and picking up his speed. Flynn could faintly make out the worried expression on Kaidan's face. He didn't know what there was to be worried about. These were three girls after all. Everyone knew that girls couldn't really hurt anyone.

All of a sudden, the running stopped and there was a brief silence.

"What the hell?" Kaidan muttered. He was staring up at the ceiling.

One of the girls, a red head, stood next to Kaidan. She was staring in the same place. She nodded back to the other girls and they began shooting.

Flynn jumped and looked around. What were they after? He narrowed his eyes and could faintly make out something crawling along the ceiling toward the window at the end of the hallway. It was long and had a tail; he really couldn't see anything else expect for its glowing eyes.

He wasn't sure what it was, but it didn't belong here.

The girls were still shooting at it as it crawled through the window. Flynn saw the bullets hit the creature, but they didn't slow it down. It made one thing clear: this thing couldn't be killed easily.

Esa looked at Floor. "Did you remember something?"

Floor took off toward the building that the creature had disappeared into. "I've seen it before!"

Esa and Lydia fell in step with her.

"Where?" Lydia asked.

"It's not her, is it?" Esa exclaimed at the same time.

"I'm not sure what it is!" Floor kicked in the door. It didn't do any good to be quiet now. The beast probably already knew they were coming for it. "I don't know what it is."

Their feet pounded on the steps as they raced them. Floor found herself only hoping that it had not left yet. She wanted to get a closer at it.

Silence filled the air as they reached what Floor hoped was the final landing. It was all they could do to keep themselves from gagging at the smell of old rot and decay. She kept her gun trained above her and she started to circle around the landing.

Esa and Lydia also kept their eyes up, staring through the metal ceiling. There wasn't a sound coming from up there.

Holding her breath, Floor stepped onto the next set of stairs. They squeaked so loud that it made she wince. She froze, turning back to look at Esa and Lydia, who were staring at her with wide eyes. She looked back upstairs. So far, there hadn't been any movement yet.

"Follow me," she whispered as she slowly stepped onto the next step. Thankfully, it didn't squeak as she applied her full weight onto it.

They carefully made their way up a series of five or six steps, before Floor froze. Lydia bumped into her so hard that she almost fell forward onto her face.

"What is it?" Lydia hissed once she regained herself.

"I thought I heard something," Floor muttered, staring up into the darkness.

"I didn't hear anything."

Esa came around Lydia to stand next to Floor, listening. "I don't hear anything either."

Floor frowned. She knew she had heard something up there. It was a bang, like something was trapped up there and couldn't get out. She sighed. This was an old building and one that had been recently damaged. It could have been a number of things.

But she knew that it was something that didn't belong. It didn't matter what they others thought. She just knew that it wasn't supposed to be up there.

"Just be careful," Floor muttered as she started to walk again. "I just got a feeling that something is off about this one."

Lydia gave Floor a dark look. "There's something off about everything."

Floor turned to say something rude back to Lydia, but the words never left her mouth. A scream echoed throughout the building. It didn't sound human or animal, but a mixture of the two and didn't sound like it was in pain.

"LET'S GO!" Floor roared as she rushed up the stairs as the creature screamed again.

The screams seemed to have some kind of punch to them. With each step, it remained very difficult to remain upright. It was like their bodies didn't want to fall down, but actually kneel before the screamer.

Lydia kept stinking lower and lower. Her knees were actually buckling as they kept up their climb.

Floor seized Lydia by the arm, forcing her upwards. "Don't you dare!"

Lydia shook her head as she struggled to get her breath. "I'm trying, but it's not working." Each word came out into a gasp. "You should just leave me."

Floor drug Lydia up two steps. "No, we don't do that! Now, pull yourself together and get to walking!"

Esa looked back at them. "It's here!"

Lydia stared up at Floor with wide eyes. "I can't do this, I'm sorry!" Her voice shook with every word. "It hurts me more than it hurts you."

Floor narrowed her eyes at Lydia. "Just stop it! You can to do this! Just stop telling yourself that you can't!"

Gasping for air, Lydia gave Floor one final long look. "Okay, okay, just don't leave me!"

"Just walk."

The creature's screams seemed to have stopped once they reached the top of the stairs. The large room was full of various objects of different sizes and there seemed to be on order to them. The snow was rushing through a person size hole in the corner, sending white flakes to block their vision. Floor looked around the room, feeling stupid as she did so. Besides, the faint movements the wind was causing, there was nothing else. It wasn't like the creature was going to be lurking in front of them, giving them an open shot to kill it.

Esa shifted his weight around for a few seconds, before kneeling down in front of them. He ran his fingers over the metal slowly.

Floor knelt down next to him. "Do you feel anything?"

Esa shook his head. "It's too dark for me to see anything either."

The early morning sunlight was doing nothing to help them. Plus, there was still a lot of cloud cover. It would have been a simple mission if only Lydia could have changed.

"What do we do now?" Floor whispered. "I don't like the idea of us splitting up."

Esa shook his head. "I don't either, but what else can we do?"

"Look together."

Esa opened his mouth to protest, but Floor cut him off.

"It will take longer, but we'll also be safer."

Sighing, Esa gave her a long look. "Do you realize all of the pain you are causing don't you? You want answers, but you seem to take the long way with doing anything."

Floor shrugged. "Sometimes taking the long way is the best way to go. People don't tend to die as much that way."

Esa ran his hand over his unshaven face. "Or they tend to die more because their leader is hesitating."

Lydia narrowed her eyes. "Are you two done yet? I thought there was something up here that could kill us."

Floor and Esa got their feet. "Let's start over there," Esa said, nodding to the mess that was closest to the wall.

They crept forward, keeping their guns out. Esa walked backwards, shifting his gun in the direction of every moving shadow. Floor kept them moving in the front. She did not really understand why the shadows seemed to come alive when you were trying to do something. Her heart pondered in her chest as something moved to her right, but the time she looked at it again, it had stopped.

"Did you see that?" she whispered to Lydia.

"It's just your mind playing games on you, Floor," Lydia replied, sternly. "Don't let it get to you."

Floor eyed her. "What do you know about mind games?"

"Everyone has them and uses them. The key is to block them out and not let them get into your head."

The shadow moved to Floor's right. She quickly pointed her gun at it. "And how am I supposed to do that?"

Lydia smiled. "Don't let them beat you."

"IT'S HERE!"

Floor turned just in time to see the creature jump down from the ceiling just about a metre or so away from Esa. It's hissing, fangs stared at them and it's glowing eyes looked like Death itself. It kept itself low to the ground in a threatening manner, like it would tear out the throat of anyone who came near it. It took Floor several seconds to realize that the creature was not actually crouching all that low, but it wasn't actually that tall.

Esa fired a couple of shots close to it, probably in the hopes that it would take off running, but it just looked as the bullets bounced near it, hissing even louder than before. Esa took a couple of steps back so quickly that he almost knocked Floor and Lydia to the ground.

"What know?" he whispered.

Floor eyed the creature, which hadn't moved. "Kill it."

The creature hissed as them again, which caused Lydia to scream.

"Stop it," Floor hissed. "We have to kill it. There's just no other way."

Esa eyed the creature. "And what if it can't be?"

"We'll worry about that after we've made it mad." She fired a couple of shots at the creature, actually hitting it. The creature roared as the bullets hit its skin. Instead of going the other way, it actually starting coming closer to them. While it wasn't moving as fast as Floor feared it could, it was still moving plenty fast.

"Run!" Esa yelled, shooting over his shoulder as they racing down through the aisles.

Floor glanced over her shoulder. The creature was still on its death march toward them, walking like a lizard. Swearing, she fired at it, not really sure if she hit it.

They reached the end of the aisle a lot quicker than Floor would have liked. Esa drove them along the back wall. Objects were actually in the centre of the aisle, some of them so small that you didn't seem them until you tripped over them.

Gasping for breath, Floor fired again at the creature. If she kept this up, she was going to run out of bullets.

The creature's screams echoed off the walls. While they were this close to the wall, Floor felt as if her ears were going to actually bleed out. She wanted to grab them, but she couldn't let up on her fire. They were either going a lot slower or the creature was moving all that much more faster. It was so close now that she could actually hear it breathing.

Up ahead, she heard Esa swearing. "IT'S BLOCKED!"