Nen (24 page)

When the door finally exploded, Mrs. Chan’s far-fetched wish was confirmed. Whatever that came into their room was not even human. Mrs. Chan and her children screamed and cried as the monster glared at them from the broken doorway.

Indifferent to the screaming, the creature swaggered in one step at a time, its fanged mouth salivate a semi-transparent liquid that dripped profusely to the ground, creating a small puddle that was putrid and revolting. The creature was blind in one eye but its other eye was gleaming bright green and it was staring straight at Pete!

Mrs. Chan pushed both her children behind her and was prepared to brace the attack from the monster.

The creature paused for a moment. It was about to enjoy a sumptuous meal that came in a bundle of three. Mrs. Chan closed her eyes and started praying again. And in the split second before the creature could lunged itself forward, a red object swung in from nowhere and bludgeoned its ugly horned head with a loud bang.

The creature roared in pain and almost fell over on one side.

“Get off my family you bastard!” a familiar voice rumbled.

“Dad!” Pete shouted as John Chan continued to smash the monster on its head with what appeared to be a heavy fire extinguisher.

With each thrashing, John forced the creature to back up and retreat to one end of the room.

“Run now!” John shouted to his wife and children who scampered to their feet and darted out of the room. John continued to hammer the beast with the red fire extinguisher.

About ten seconds after his wife and children left the room, John sensed that someone or something had dashed in. He turned around briefly and saw Howard and Sarah standing behind him. Howard was carrying a strange looking weapon that was attached to a large cylinder strapped across his back.

“Move aside, John!” Howard yelled at him. And John immediately stopped his bludgeoning and stepped aside.

Flame spurted from the barrel of strange weapon that Howard was carrying and a wave of intense heat swept the room in an instant.

Continuous bursts of orange flames propelled forward and engulfed the creature. It jerked and wriggled its fiery body, trying to move forward but was pushed back by another blast of flames. In an instant, the room was full of smoke and the wall behind the burning creature was on fire, the flames still small, but already licking up the wall.

John backed away from the creature and stood alongside Howard. He glanced at the weapon that Howard was using and realized that it was some kind of flame thrower that he had seen in a few Hollywood movies. He shifted his focus back to the creature in flames, holding the slightly dented fire extinguisher close to his chest but had no intention to put out the roaring fire before him.

Sarah aimed her cross bow and fired three shots at the blazing creature. Three loud cracks could be heard and the creature winced when the razor sharp arrows sank deeper into its scorching skin.

It snarled an awful sound and made a hateful glare at the three humans in the room before crashing its blazing body into the flimsy wall on the same side as the doorway. Half the wall collapsed under that impact and the burning creature leapt through the crack and scurried down the hallway.

“Put out the fire!” Sarah shouted at Howard and John. She then darted out of the room and caught a glimpse of the blazing creature speeding down the long hallway. The fluttering flames on its muscular back created a fire trail which reminded Sarah of some rocket fireworks that she used to play when she was a child.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a terrible sight just across the hallway. Mr. Park’s room had a mangled door and there was blood all over! Worried that Mr. Park or his sister would need medical assistance, she dashed in. Behind her she heard the whoosh of the fire extinguisher.

When the dense white cloud from the fire extinguisher subsided in the living quarter that almost burnt down, Howard saw John Chan ducking and sliding himself through the collapsed wall.

“Where did it go?” Howard asked after he found him in the hallway, standing amidst broken bricks and charred planks.

“It’s gone,” John said with a weak voice, “That way.” He pointed.

Howard peered down the empty hallway and he could see a long trail of smoke snaking in the air.

“Where is Sarah? She can’t just disappear?” Howard looked around and didn’t see her. John stared at Howard in a daze and slowly shook his head.

“Howard, John, come over here.” Sarah’s faint voice sounded from the room across.

John and Howard immediately shambled to the room where another massacre had happened not too long ago. Sarah was crouching down and looking at the bundles of human parts littered all over the floor. She was quite amazed that there were scores of fruits and vegetables among the carnage.

“I’m afraid all these belonged to Madam Kim,” Sarah said with a sigh, “And I think Mr. Park is over there.”

“Serves him right.” John muttered as he finally put down the fire extinguisher.

Sarah and Howard turned their heads and they glared at John.

“Serves him right?” Sarah repeated, “Did I hear you wrongly, John?”

John Chan did not answer Sarah. He just gave her a weird smile, picked up the fire extinguisher again and sprinted down the hallway, in the direction of the command center office.

“Where’s he going?” Sarah asked.

“To look for his family, I guess.” Howard said, “Hope they’re fine.”

“Yeah, if the children had gone this way, they will be fine. Just pray that they had already reached the command office safely.” Sarah said, jerking her thumb in the direction of the command center, and not the other way where the burning creature had headed.

CHAPTER 40

The battered iron door was patched and reinforced with iron plates and broken planks. Nelson, Johnny and Paul had spent half of the last hour doing that to ensure that the command center office was separated from outside by a much sturdier door. The other half of the time was spent sending out distress calls from the old radio system that Nelson had mended. Mami-san did not help them at all. She sat on a wooden chair at the far end of the room and was seen weeping from time to time, probably thinking about Kenso-san and the wonderful time when they were together.

Paul and Nelson’s work routine was interrupted by a hysterical Mrs. Chan and her panicky children, who screamed and yelled at the door before they were let in. Without asking, Paul and Nelson had deduced that the Chan family had encountered the hideous beast.

Mrs. Chan explained frantically to Paul that her husband was still wrestling with the creature and begged for their assistance.

However, Paul’s reaction to that was lukewarm.

“My… my husband is dying out there. You guys…have guns, why can’t you do something?” Mrs. Chan stared into Paul’s shifty eyes.

“Guns are useless, Ma’am.” Nelson said.

“It’s true, the beast killed my boyfriend. Only Sarah could stop the monster.” Mami-san interjected. Her remarks about Sarah made many heads turned.

“Sarah could stop the monster? Mami-san, can you take care of my children?” Mrs. Chan said with tears looming in her eyes, “I’m going to look for Sarah now and I’m sure I can save John.”

Mami-san nodded slightly.

However, Johnny stood in front of the door and stopped Mrs. Chan from opening it. “Ma’am, you’re crazy. John could be dead already.”

“No, John is still fighting the beast in our room. He just need some help.” Mrs. Chan had no time to explain and she tried to push Johnny away.

Paul grabbed Mrs. Chan from behind and dragged her away from the iron door. His voice was firm. “Ma’am, John is dead. He is just one man. We saw what the beast can do. You’re courting death… We can’t let you go.”

Pauline lunged herself forward and started throwing punches on Paul as Pete stood motionless at one corner watching the commotion dispiritedly. Even Mami-san had come forward for an attempt to stop the din.

The iron door shuddered with a loud bang followed by a man’s voice from outside.

“Open the damned door!”

“It’s John!! Take your filthy hands off me!” Mrs. Chan cried, trying to break free. Paul was surprised that John could survive the creature but he was certain that it was indeed John’s voice. He released his grip. Throwing a disgusted look at Paul, Mrs. Chan started forward and yanked open the door.

John Chan wobbled into the room holding a fire extinguisher in his hands. His shirt was badly torn and there were bruises and abrasion marks all over his sweaty face and around his forearms. Mrs. Chan bear hugged him. Pete and Pauline were delighted to see their father again and they dashed forward to hug him.

Howard and Sarah arrived not long after.

“Thank God.” That was what Howard said when he saw Pete, Pauline and Mrs. Chan hugging John in the command center room.

“So what happened, John?” Howard asked, his eyes scanning John’s exhausted face.

John sat on a chair and sipped water from a plastic cup of water that his wife had given him earlier. He had cleaned his face and arms with his wife’s wet handkerchief and had applied some Band-Aids on the abrasions around his arms. A piece of thick cotton gauze was taped over his forehead but the bleeding had stopped. His whole body was stiff and aching. He had a big bruise on his thigh, another on his cheek and an ugly purple welt on his shoulder. A few minutes ago, Dr. Sarah had examined him for a while and she had assured Mrs. Chan that besides some minor abrasions and a superficial cut on his forehead that didn’t need stitches, he was perfectly all right.

John took another sip and then put the plastic cup down.

“Howard, what in the world was that?” John asked, hoping to get some answers from Howard.

“My guess is as good as yours, John,” Howard said, “Now tell me, what happened to you and Mr. Park?”

Almost everyone in the command center room was listening and waiting for John to tell his story.

“Mr. Park took all the fruits from the garden. I saw what he did and I questioned him.” John said, “We decided to come to you guys to resolve the dispute but on our way here, we were attacked by the monster.”

“Mr. Park died in his room. So I guess the creature didn’t kill Mr. Park then?” Sarah asked.

“No, in fact Mr. Park managed to escape when we were ambushed by the creature. He’s a bastard!” John snapped. He seemed surprised by his own outburst when he realized that his children were also listening. He gained control of himself and changed his tone.

“He pushed me down so as to save himself.” John continued, “I fell down the stairs and almost broke my neck. That man literally threw me into the lion’s cage and left me to die.”

“How did you escape then?” Paul asked.

“Well, I really thought I would be dead when the creature pinned me down at the stairwell landing. Mr. Park was already gone, of course. I tried to fight back and that’s when my right hand came into contact with something hard. I just grabbed it and used it to hammer the creature.”

“And that hard object is the fire extinguisher?” Howard asked. John nodded.

“You mean you hit the creature with this fire extinguisher and it works?” Nelson asked, scrutinizing the slightly dented fire extinguisher that was placed on the floor beside John.

John nodded again and said, “Yes, I kept bludgeoning the creature with the fire extinguisher until it backed away. I think I blacked out for a couple of minutes after the creature left.”

Howard raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. He seemed to have some thoughts but preferred not to make any presumptions before John finished his story.

“What happened next?”

“Well, I was out for a few minutes. When I came around, my first thought was about my family and I had to warn them about this monster.” John said. “So I headed back to the living quarters, carrying my new weapon.” John took a glance at the fire extinguisher beside him and then he said, “My heart sank when I heard screams coming from my room. I didn’t expect the creature to be so relentless. So I barged in and hammered its ugly head again and again with the fire extinguisher. I managed to drive the creature away from my kids and my wife, allowing them to escape. You know the rest.”

Howard nodded.

“Tell us what you think, Howard,” John said, “Is that creature an unknown species or some sort of biological weapon created by World War Two Japanese soldiers?”

Howard did not answer him and an awkward silence hung in the air.

Sarah said, “John, we have absolutely no clue about this thing. It had killed my fiancé Kevin,” She paused for a moment, “Kenso-san and Wong too.”

“What? I …I’m sorry…” John was stunned.

“Plus Mr. Park and his sister Kim, this beast had already murdered five of us.” Sarah said with a slightly trembling voice.

“My goodness…”John muttered, realizing that he was indeed extremely lucky to have survived the creature’s attack.
But I did beat the shit out of that ugly monster, didn’t I? Why didn’t the rest who died defend themselves, like what I had done? Well, maybe they didn’t have any weapons or tools to fight back.
He pondered his thoughts in silence.