Tina Chan - imperfect

Troop cringed at the sound of Rosa’s spine snapping when she slammed into the ground. The devil-dog crouched over Rosa, its poisonous saliva dripping over her. Her flesh melted off her skull in random patches. Troop turned his eyes away from the gruesome sight.

A devil-dog let out another howl and was answered with an assortment of howls, barks and snarls. Judging by the sound, there were at least thirty other devil-dogs that were not in a triple locked cage in a triple locked room.

Understandably, the South Wing broke into chaos.

“Will all unarmed persons take cover under a desk,” a soldier bellowed through his portable speakers.

A stream of devil-dogs flooded the room. The guards surrounding Kristi, Troop and Chelsa dropped onto their knees and began firing at the creatures. The bullets seemed to do little, other than to annoy the devil-dogs though. Kristi watched a bullet lodge itself firmly into the shoulder of a devil-dog, yet the devil-dog only gave a yip and nothing more.

“Let’s run for the emergency exit,” she said to Troop and Chelsa.

A devil-dog landed between the three of them, causing Kristi to jump sideways. The guard to her right immediately shot the devil-dog, which caused it to stumble for a second, giving her the chance to dodge out of the circle of soldiers guarding them.

“Meet you outside,” Chelsa said and dashed away amidst the commotion.

Kristi rapidly lost sight of Chelsa and Troop in the turmoil. It’s every woman for herself , she thought. Although the scientists were instructed to stay beneath their desks, several were attempting to escape the building through the emergency exits as well.

“The Accidents! Don’t let them escape!” someone hollered. “Vincent, the boy’s behind you!”

Kristi caught a glimpse of Troop sidestepping a guard trying to grab him; then he disappeared from her view once more. She threaded her way towards the exit, trying her best to avoid attention.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” asked the soldier who had slapped her for sneezing earlier. He moved in to block her way.

Kristi didn’t waste her breath with an answer and side-stepped to the left. He side-stepped along with her and lunged forwards. Luckily, Kristi accidently tripped over a briefcase and stumbled backwards, out of the man’s reach. She leapt to her right, recovering from his swipe for her.

“ Grr.”

Both girl and guard froze at the growl. Kristi took a peek behind her and saw a devil-dog come flying towards them. The guard rolled to one side just in time; the devil-dog’s powerful jaws snapped around empty space where the guard’s head had just been a split second ago.

The devil-dog twisted around to face Kristi with its fangs bared and nose quivering with excitement. She danced backwards, the devil-dog snapping at her limbs. They continued this perverted version of a waltz: Kristi stepping just out of reach of the monster’s teeth with every step she took backwards.

The devil-dog grew bored with her and fixed its attention back onto the guard. During the few seconds the devil-dog was occupied with Kristi, the guard had managed to get back on his feet and grab his gun.

The devil-dog took a flying leap at the guard. The guard fired a quick shot at the creature’s chest and sprung aside. The wound only angered the devil-dog without causing any damage that would hinder its movement.

“You distract the devil-dog while I shoot him,” the guard yelled. “If we don’t work together, we’ll both get killed.”

Kristi knew what the guard said was true; the devil-dog was bound to kill one of them sooner or later, and once that happened, the devil-dog would go after the remaining person. As much as she loathed working with an ally of Zala, she replied, “Okay. But the bullets don’t seem to be effective against the devil-dogs.”

The devil-dog spun towards the sound of her voice and let loose a bark. It advanced towards Kristi and she evaded its venomous saliva by sprinting to the opposite side of the hall.

The guard answered her, “I’m sure the devil-dog won’t be able to survive a bullet to the heart.”

The devil-dog momentarily forgot about Kristi and settled its gaze back onto the guard.

“Hey, you fluff-of-fur!” Kristi yelled at the dog, successfully diverting the devil-dog’s focus back onto her.

The guard fired another round of bullets into the devil-dog’s hide. After about ten shots, Kristi noticed the movements of the devil-dog were getting just the tiniest bit slower. Sure, the creature was still fast enough to maul her if she wasn’t careful, but at least its reaction time was slowing down.

“Watch out!” the guard warned her just before he slammed the butt of his gun into the snout of the devil-dog.

Kristi jerked her hand back as saliva spewed from its muzzle; a few drops of drool splattered onto her arms, making the skin hiss when the acid burned through her shirt.

“What are you doing?” she screamed. “Are you trying to kill both of us?”

“No,” the guard answered in a strained voice. “I figured it’s time to try another method to kill the devil-dog since bullets obviously aren’t working—that and the fact that I ran out of bullets.”

The devil-dog swayed onto its feet. Surprisingly, being whacked by a rifle seemed to have the greatest effect on the devil-dog so far. The guard accidently stepped into a pool of devil-dog slobber and the rubber soles of his boots dissolved into putty.

“Crud,” he said.

The devil-dog twitched its ears towards the sound of the guard and pounced onto him. The guard was knocked backwards with enough force to break a brick wall. Fortunately or unfortunately, the guard slammed into a second devil-dog instead of the wall. If the other devil-dog hadn’t been around to cushion the guard’s impact, he would’ve died for sure. On the other hand, he now had another problem to deal with, leaving Kristi to face the first devil-dog on her own.

Kristi slipped on the floor now slick with blood, letting out a yell before she landed hard on her butt. Both of the devil-dogs cast their gaze onto her. Then realization hit her: devil-dogs were attracted to noise. She spotted the guard crawling towards his gun and did her best to keep the attention of the two devil-dogs on her without actually getting herself killed because, well, being slayed by devil-dogs wasn’t very high on her to-do-list.

“Yeah, you’re just a little puppy,” Kristi taunted the devil-dogs.

Whether they understood the words or not, she couldn’t say, but they definitely comprehended the tone of her voice since both of them raised their hackles and began to circle Kristi.

She looked around for anything that could be used as a weapon. Except for a smoke alarm hanging by a few threads of wire on the wall, a heap of broken tiles, an overturned cart and some scattered paper reports, the hallway contained nothing helpful.

Kristi rolled off to one side just in time. The larger devil-dog sprang towards her.

“Fire!” she yelled. “Water!”

“Is that supposed to mean something?” the guard asked.

“Can you start a fire?”

She shoved some paper towards him to use as tinder. “The smoke alarm will activate the sprinklers if we can set it off,” she explained, dodging a swipe made by a devil-dog and throwing a broken tile towards the dog at the same time.

“And devil-dogs are afraid of water,” the guard finished her thoughts.

“Exactly.”

“Here—use this to keep the devil-dogs busy while I make a fire.” He threw his rifle to her and pulled out a small lighter from his pocket.

Kristi caught the rifle and used it to poke at the devil-dogs, keeping them at a safe distance away. She snatched up more tiles off the ground and aimed them between the eyes of the devil-dogs. She didn’t pay attention to her footing though, and backed into the upturned cart. The smaller devil-dog was upon her in an instant.