I pushed the thing off of me and scooted back as fast as I could until my back hit something solid. My arms were slick with blood but I didn’t feel any pain. In fact I couldn’t feel anything at all. It was like my skin had gone numb.

The room was quiet except for heavy breathing.

“You all right, Nick?” Flint asked. He tossed me a hand towel that I had trouble picking up. As I clumsily wiped away the blood, the skin underneath was riddled with dozens of tiny punctures.

“I dunno. Is it dead? I’ll be better if we killed it.”

“Yeah- I think Jessica is on it.” Something in Flint’s voice made me looked around him to see Jessica crouched over the thing that had attacked me, rocking back and forth.

“What’s she doing?” I asked.

“Cutting the thing’s head off.”

“She’s what?”

“Decapitating it.”

I looked again and watched her arm move in a rhythmic sawing motion. I felt sick and needed a distraction.

“Gustav!” I called.

Flint sighed. “When she started cutting, the old man ran off muttering about free will.”