The Predator's Table and the Bandaged Avenger
"Haa... haa..."
Na-bi clung to a precarious balance atop the ice cream freezer. The place where the flesh of her thigh had been torn away burned as if seared by a brand. Drip. Drip. Crimson blood welled from the ragged skin, slid down the freezer's face, and fell to the floor.
A wet slurp. A smack of lips. The instant the blood touched down, the seams between the tiles flushed a hungry red and drank the liquid in. It sounded for all the world like a starving beast licking its chops. The sight sent a jolt of terror through her; she tried to scramble backward. But there was nowhere to go. The floor was everywhere, and the moment she touched it, it would swallow her whole.
"Stay away... don't eat me..."
Crouched low, Na-bi scanned the display shelves. From the freezer to the snack racks, past the ramen aisle, all the way to the entrance — the only path that would keep her feet off the floor.
Then a thought flashed through her mind like lightning. This floor was hungry. Organic or otherwise, it would swallow and digest whatever it could get. Which meant... she didn't have to be the one it ate.
Her gaze drifted toward the glass doors. Sleek plastic faces glittering in the dark. Those persistent mannequins, waiting for her to come out — or for the door to open. And farther off, slinking through a corner of the lobby, the shadows of flayed dogs. The Hounds.
The ones that had chewed her, raped her, defiled her. The corner of Na-bi's mouth twisted upward.
That's right. Come on in. Come in and play with this floor.
She forced her trembling legs to move. Stepping onto the steel shelves, using the display racks as stepping stones, she picked her way forward with painstaking care. Every step made the shelves creak and sway, but she clenched her teeth and held on.
She reached for the jerky display and tore open a packet of tough beef jerky. A spicy, salty smell rose from it. But it wasn't enough. She needed a scent strong enough to drive them wild — especially those beasts.
Na-bi flung herself toward the counter where the microwave sat, moving like a desperate acrobat. She shoved the jerky in and hit start.
A low hum. A ding. Hot steam billowed up. The smell of meat — processed, yes, but rich enough, dense enough, to whip starving monsters into a frenzy. The scent flooded the convenience store. She snatched the scalding packet and headed for the entrance.
The path to the door was treacherous. More than once her foot nearly slipped as she crossed the shelves. Each time, the tiles below heaved and surged upward, trying to snatch her ankle.
"No... not yet..."
Hanging from the top of a display rack, Na-bi stretched toward the automatic door's lock. A click. The lock released. She pressed the button with her fingertip.
A whir. The doors slid open. Damp, cold air from the lobby mixed with the warm, metallic-sweet air of the store. At the same time, the smell of cooked jerky spilled out into the dark.
"Grrrr..."
The dark answered. First to come were the Hounds, their noses the sharpest of all. Skinless dogs, raw red muscle on full display, came bounding into the convenience store's light with drool streaming from their jaws.
"Rrah! Grrrah!"
Three Hounds hit the floor, chasing the jerky scent. And that was the moment.
A wet split. A schlurp. The lead Hound's paw touched down — and the tile sank like a bog, swallowing its ankle whole. The solid floor turned, in an instant, to sticky mucous membrane, wrapping around their limbs. The Hounds thrashed in panic, but the more they struggled, the deeper and faster they were sucked down.
Crunch. Crack. Unseen teeth chewed from beneath the floor. The Hounds' leg bones shattered; their muscle melted away. They howled and writhed in agony, but even those sounds were swallowed as the floor undulated. Red masses of muscle dissolved into the white tiles, spreading like a stain of blood.
"Ha... haha..."
Na-bi looked down from the shelf and let out a hollow laugh. It felt good. The muzzles that had tried to tear her apart, the legs that had chased her — being chewed alive by the floor.
But the main course was still coming. The mannequins. They didn't respond to scent the way the Hounds did. But the open door, and Na-bi waiting inside it, were enough to ignite an unbearable curiosity — and a hunger to destroy.
Clack. Tap. Clatter-clatter. Dozens of mannequins came flooding in. The rattle of plastic joints filled the store. They could see the floor devouring the Hounds, and they didn't care. Mindless things. Hollow shells driven by a single desire: to smash the plaything in front of them and fill it up.
The lead mannequin stepped inside. A thud. A wet suck. It tried to lift its foot. The floor wouldn't let go. Red mucous threads erupted from the tile gaps, winding around its ankle and calf. The thing tilted its head and yanked.
Crack. The ankle joint snapped. The floor didn't stop. It climbed the thing's knee, its thigh. The ones that followed fared no better. Like a glutton at an all-you-can-eat buffet, the floor seized every leg that crossed the threshold and dragged it down.
"Krrk! Tick! Tick!"
The mannequins thrashed, joints screeching. The floor couldn't dissolve them the way it had the organic Hounds. Plastic didn't taste as good, perhaps — or it simply took longer to digest. But swallowing them? That it did without hesitation. The way a mudflat swallows a boulder, it undulated and dragged their torsos down beneath the white tiles.
"That's it... eat them all... eat every last one..."
Na-bi muttered, her eyes gone wild. These were the ones that had jammed every kind of attachment into her. The ones that had giggled at her screams. Watching them now — unable even to cry out, their smooth faces mashed as they were crushed into the tiles — something in her chest opened wide, a hole of vicious, airy satisfaction.
One of them, half-buried, reached a hand toward her. Na-bi grabbed a canned drink from the shelf beside her and hurled it at the thing's head. A metallic clang.
"Don't you dare! Don't look at me! Die! Get the hell out of here!"
She screamed herself hoarse. The floor couldn't digest some of the joints or the harder attachments, and spat them back up with a wet retch. But their movement — that almost-living motive force — it sucked down greedily. The mannequins that stopped moving became nothing more than scrap, rolling across the floor.
The storm passed. The convenience store floor was a wreck of Hound blood and mannequin wreckage — but then the tiles began to work in concert, swallowing all of it down, down into somewhere deeper. And then it was smooth and white again. Innocent. As if nothing had happened at all.
"Hoo... hoo..."
The tension drained out of her and she sank down. Crouched in the narrow space atop the shelf, she looked at herself. She was a wreck. Her clothes were shredded to rags; her chest and lower body were fully exposed. Her entire body was coated in scabs, bruises, and some unidentifiable slime.
"I need... to treat this."
Na-bi crawled on all fours toward the display with the first-aid kit. Inside: white bandages, gauze, disinfectant. Her trembling hands picked up a roll of bandage. The first place she needed to cover. The place where her dignity had been most savagely destroyed.
She unwound the bandage and wrapped it between her legs. Over her thighs, covering her groin, looping around her hips. The white cloth was soft against her skin. Just the fact that she could cover herself was a comfort.
Next, her chest. She stripped off the tattered remains of her top and bound her breasts tight with bandage. As the pressure cinched around her ribs, her scattered mind began, little by little, to gather itself.
"There... now I look... a little more like a person."
She didn't look in the mirror. She was afraid she'd fall apart if she did. Instead she looked down at herself and smiled, bitter. She looked like a mummy, wrapped in bandages — but at least she no longer looked like a naked animal, or a broken toy. This was a trophy. Proof that she had survived hell.
"I won... you're all dead, and I'm still alive."
Na-bi whispered it to the empty air. It hadn't been her own power that won. It might have been a coward's victory, borrowing the strength of a greater monster — the convenience store itself. But so what. She was the one who'd survived. A place where the result justified the means. That was what this place was.
She sat on the shelf with her legs stretched out and wiggled her toes. Her bandaged legs swung in the air. Her Indomitable body was recovering at a rapid clip. New flesh itched as it grew over the torn meat of her thigh, and the throbbing bones of her pelvis were finding their proper place again.
As the pain receded, exhaustion crashed over her. Her brain, the tension gone, demanded a shutdown. Na-bi's head began to nod.
So sleepy... just a little nap...
Her eyelids grew heavy. The shelf was narrow and uncomfortable, but the relief of knowing the monsters on the floor were gone was trying to lull her to sleep.
That was when it happened. A sound like machinery — yet strangely organic — resonated inside her skull. Not through her ears. Telepathy, piped directly into the marrow of her brain.
It was delicious.
Na-bi's eyes snapped open. Who was that? There was no one here.
The voice came from the floor, the walls, the ceiling — all at once. It was the convenience store. The space itself was speaking to her.
Thank you, little human.
I ought to repay you.
A chill ran through her; she shrank into herself. Repay her? Did that mean it would let her live?
I won't eat you.
Not yet.
The relief lasted only a moment. The voice's tone shifted. Stickier. Greedier.
"What...?"
Na-bi, startled, tried to pull her legs in — and that was when it happened. Something touched her left ankle, dangling off the edge of the shelf. It wasn't cold. It was lukewarm. Soft.
Before she could even scream, it wrapped around her ankle. A red tongue rising from the floor. No — a tentacle. A sticky stalk of living mucous membrane, clinging to her skin with thousands of tiny suckers.
A deep, wet suction. The pull was overwhelming. It wasn't just gripping her. The suckers were drawing at every pore, harvesting her fluids, her scent.
A tremendous force yanked her leg. Na-bi's body lifted off the shelf. She reached for the display rack, but her nails scraped across it and slipped.
"KYAAAAAAAH——!!!!!"
Na-bi plunged toward the floor. What waited for her was not hard tile. It was a vast predator's maw, gaping wide, its sticky red tongues writhing in welcome.