The double set of yellow eyes watched Reggie closely as he held the bat tightly in a defensive position that would allow him to easily block or go on the offensive. The seconds that ticked by were infinite and oppressive. It felt like he was a giant spring that was being compressed as tightly as it could and then held it securely before it let loose.
Reggie stood his ground, scared beyond belief, waiting for the creature to make the first move. It made no sound or attempt to speak, it just kept standing and staring at him with green pupils and yellow eyes. The agony of each second ticking past without anything happening fed into Reggie’s fear. He wondered how he’d be able to survive once it began to attack and how he’d be able to get away. He knew he couldn’t hide because it had seen him going into the access panel and he would no longer be safe.
“Why is it just looking at me?” he thought to himself. “What does it expect me to do?”
As his arms began to fatigue from holding hit bat out in front of him, he slowly allowed himself to flex his arm muscles in order to stretch and lower the bat a bit at the same time. The slow sudden movement caused the creature to flinch and get into a more aggressive position.
Reggie’s heart began to race faster and he thought, “I wish it would just try and kill me and get it over with! What is it afraid of?”
He pondered that thought while the creature continued to stare at him. His senses came to life again and he was aware of many different acute things. He could still hear the intermittent sounds from the floors above him and down the hall, the scratchy rubbing of its tongues against each other, his heart pounding in his head and chest, and the soft swishing sound of his tail as it move left to right. Then Reggie had a revelation.
“Of course, it’s afraid of me,” he thought. “That’s why it’s not attacking, it doesn’t think it can win. The nasty bastard is waiting for his friends to get here and help him!”
The creature seemed to sense that something had changed within Reggie and took a more defensive stance, trying to get ready for an attack. Reggie narrowed his eyes at the creature and said, “So you’re waiting for your ugly friends to come and help you huh? Something tells me they just may be too late!”
With those last words, Reggie quickly swung the bat at its head and instantly met nothing but air. The creature ducked so fast that Reggie fully expected to connect and found himself off balance due to the excessive weight he put into his swing. That small bit of instability and uncertainty were all the creature needed as it stood back up and wrapped its fingers around Reggie’s throat.
He struggled in vain and wiggled all over the floor before he was able to bring his bat down on the back end of the creatures head. Reggie threw the monster off of him and got to his feet.
The creature was on its back, prone and easy prey. Reggie approached the creature just as it was bringing its head up and he brought down the bat once more. This time his hands were gripped tightly like he was stepping up to the plate. With all his might he brought the bat down onto the creature’s head with a sick and thick cracking sound. Again and again the cracking sound was met with the hollow sounding thud of the metal bat. After a few moments he realized the creature wasn’t moving any more.
Although it looked dead to him, it obviously wasn’t human and he wasn’t sure it could even die. He watched it for over ten minutes wondering what his next move should be when he thought he heard more of the creatures coming towards his suite.
“They must have heard the fight and they’re going to be checking on him,“ He said as he spat on the body.
Thinking quickly, Reggie hauled the body inside the access panel where his supplies were. The beast was much heavier that he imagined, and it took him some time to lift it by an end and move it. At first he wad going to pull him by the feet, but he was afraid the cranial blood would leave a trail. So he picked him completely up and walked him into his access sanctuary.
Reggie went back into his room and tried his best to hide their fight, which wasn't difficult due to the remains of the ransacking that trashed the room to begin with. He could hear the other creatures marching down the hall in his direction, so he knew he didn’t have much time.
He tried to copy things in to the same potion they were before, and even slide his desk so that it looked to be blocking the access panel from the outside after retreating back into the sanctuary. It took ten minutes for the rest of group of monsters to get there and even though they stayed and searched again they were unable to find anything that was amiss.
After he was sure they were gone, he lit the candle he brought with him and he tried to make his hideout a bit more comfortable. Once he had completed that he doused the light and sat in silence next to the corpse of the dead creature with own thoughts.
