Creature feature

Where were you when the world ended?

 I was at Freddy’s, working the night shift. Yeah, that chain. Yeah, the rumors were true. Spooky shit.

The robots were alive. They did everything like what people said. One would go into the kitchen. The others would try to get to me and my little office. It went like normal for a few days, until The Night came. The night that It came from the sea. And the rest of those abominations.

Keep in mind, I lived in a coastal town. So we were some of the first folks to see these things, at least on the civilian side of things. I lived a simple, quiet life with a simple, quiet routine. Wake up at 10. Go for a jog. Then go to the job.
It was a regular morning. I did my duties. I punched in, checked the cameras, and drank my coffee. Then the lights flickered. I thought I fucked up somehow. The lights NEVER flickered, unless you ran out of power.

And then I heard the stomps. The thuds. The lights flickered with each step. And then they just went out for good, and stayed that way. I thought I was dead meat. Freddy, yeah, the mascot Freddy, he was at my window and did that damn jingle. You heard it on TV all the time, some Italian shit. I don’t remember what it was called. But he did that jingle, and I could hear the thudding again. Right next to the building, right outside the goddamn building. Freddy must’ve heard it too, because I couldn’t see him at my window anymore. I could hear a wet, slimy sound from outside. Loud and squishy is how I remember it best. Something hit the ground outside with a splash. And then the stomping continued, and got fainter and fainter as It went away.

Was it an earthquake? A tsunami? People worried about that, where I lived. Of course, you and I know the answer was worse. But instead of a visit from the big guys themselves, I  got one of the Louse.
I heard a loud crunching noise, and looked at the cameras to see a broken wall spill out  into the parts and service room. That’s where they keep the robot parts, and that’s where the Louse entered.

Once the dust cleared, I saw it on my cameras. It was a sight to behold. It was unlike anything I had seen in my life. It had a long, thick body, like a lobster. But the texture looked soft, and slimy. Like a slug, or an eel. It’s “face”, or the closest thing to a face, was broken up by mandibles, and protected by an array of tentacles which moved and pulsated. Like a nautilus. Its head was protected by shell cartilage. A similar substance coated  its claws, which smoked with strange, crackling bubbles.

The thing crawled forth on a set of crustacean legs, with four legs on each side. The body kept coming and coming from the outside as it reached the other side of the room.   When it reached the hallway, I could see the end of its body, tapering in a lobster’s tail. It poked its head into the hallway, at which point Foxy sprinted down the hallway, only for his hook to bounce off the thing’s plating uselessly.

I looked into the hallway on my left, and watched Foxy stop fighting. A slime-coated claw shot out, and gripped his hook arm. With a tug, his arm was torn off. Sparks lit up the darkness, as something poured from where his arm once was.

The thing was upon him in a matter of seconds. Its mandibles quickly tore through his helmet, his helmet ripped to shreds as the tentacles tossed away the red fabric in a shower of red. He screamed, and his screams were muffled and eventually silenced by the lapping tentacles and mandibles, which quickly enveloped him. I could see the thing’s eyes as it devoured the fox. They were black, empty. They rested on the side, horizontally across from each other like a squid’s. The diluted pupils, frantically darting from one direction to the other, spoke of an untold madness dwelling within the creature’s mind, something I wouldn’t dare think about.

The creature was a pale, light color, illuminated by the sparks of light sent by Foxy’s damage, as he was turned to scrap before my eyes. I watched as Freddy, Chica, and Bonnie rushed down the hallway, and took that as my chance for escape. I threw open the door to the outside world, situated next to my booth in the west hall, and saw the smoking, collapsed ruins of various buildings. This was the end of the world.