Your Turn to Suffer by Tim Waggoner (free romance novels .TXT) 📗

the morning cleaning her apartment and doing laundry. Did too much, that’s all. She only needed to stand here a few moments and give her lungs a chance to relax. She’d be fine then, and she could go into the toy store and find something that, hopefully, would delight the children on Christmas morning. But as she stood on the sidewalk in front of the Blue Elephant, rain pattering on the overhang above her, making a rushing-hiss sound as it came down on the parking lot, she still couldn’t catch her breath. In fact, it was becoming more difficult for her to draw in air at all. Her pulse raced. She could feel it fluttering at the base of her throat, pounding in her temples.

You’re having a panic attack. You’ve worked yourself up to the point where you’re afraid you can’t breathe, and now that’s what’s happening. A self-fulfilled prophecy.

If she could relax, calm herself, her breathing should return to normal and she’d be okay.

She was well aware of the weight of her purse hanging from her shoulder, of the phone she kept inside. She could pull it out, call nine-one-one, wait for paramedics to arrive and tend to her, take her to the hospital if necessary. If she waited too long to call, if she was stubborn and denied the possibility that she was experiencing a medical crisis, she might die right here, now, in front of a store that sold playthings for children. Wouldn’t that be a lovely surprise for the next child whose mother brought him or her to the store? Mommy, why is that old lady lying on the sidewalk? Is she asleep?

She didn’t want to be weak, didn’t want to give in to her fear. But she didn’t want to die, either. She reached into her purse and grabbed her phone. But before she could remove it, she saw them. They came running across the parking lot, lean, long-limbed creatures formed of featureless darkness. A half dozen, maybe more. They wove between parked vehicles, slashing out at them with clawed hands, digging gouges in the metal, shattering window glass. But the damage didn’t end there. As the creatures moved on, the vehicles began to lose their shapes, melt and liquefy, the falling rain hastening this process until they lost structural integrity entirely, sagged, and collapsed into piles of thick, metallic-colored goo. Within seconds, the shadow things destroyed a dozen cars in this fashion, and they continued destroying more as they headed in Blanche’s direction. She understood instantly what she was witnessing. These were creatures of death, and they were coming for her at last. She didn’t intend to stand there and wait for them, though. She’d spent eighty years and change avoiding them, and she didn’t plan on giving in to them now. She turned and rushed inside the Blue Elephant, concerns about her breathing and heart rate forgotten. She had more immediate threats to contend with.

The toy store wasn’t crowded. It was a small shop and it was early afternoon on a weekday. There was a woman in her twenties or thirties – it was hard for Blanche to judge people’s ages if they were significantly younger than her – at the register, and a man she guessed was in his sixties looking at a display of build-it-yourself robots. The lighting was bright inside the Blue Elephant, to make the wares seem more appealing she guessed, and there were shelves containing realistic-looking stuffed animals, challenging puzzles of both the 2-D and 3-D variety, toys and games designed to inspire and sharpen a child’s imagination and creativity, and best of all, not a mindless fashion doll or violent video game anywhere.

Blanche realized she must’ve made more noise than she’d thought when entering, for both the girl at the register and the middle-aged man turned to look at her. They both seemed concerned, and she figured she must look like a crazy woman to them – face pale, expression alarmed, gasping for breath and trembling with terror. She opened her mouth, intending to tell them what was coming, to exhort them to hide, but nothing came out. Part of this was due to her trouble catching her breath, but she also had no idea what words to say. How could she describe what she’d seen, what was coming for them, for her? She didn’t have to, though, for an instant later the glass door shattered and death’s dark emissaries flooded into the store. She tried to run, but the best she could manage was an unsteady, teetering walk. She heard the sounds of displays and shelves being knocked over, heard thick plaps as items liquefied and dropped to the floor. The girl at the register screamed, and the man in front of the robotics toys gaped in stunned disbelief.

Blanche turned down the first aisle she came to, this one containing shelves of toys based on a historical theme, dolls, games, and activities focused on different time periods from Ancient Egypt all the way to the American Revolution and beyond. The shadow things spread throughout the store, but none of them followed her. She’d gotten lucky, for the moment at least, but she doubted her luck would hold out long. Still, she didn’t intend to give up. She hadn’t lived as long as she had to surrender to death without a fight, even if she couldn’t put up much of one at her age.

The monsters destroyed toys and the shelves upon which they were displayed, both melting as she’d seen the vehicles in the parking lot do. One of the things slashed the middle-aged man on the arm, and he cried out in pain and clapped a hand to the wound. His voice began to drop in tone, and Blanche watched as his face began to soften and sag. He looked at her, eyes stretching downward as his features melted, lips surrounding the long oval of his mouth twitching as if he wanted to say something, perhaps