It’s the end of the world as we know it…

 

"Give me your hand!" Nny shouted as the staircase behind them began to collapse and be consumed by the cloud. Devi didn't ask why. She held out her hand. Johnny took it, and swung Devi with all his might. Devi felt a brief sensation of weightlessness and landed further up the stairs.

 "Go!" Nny shouted, scrambling on all fours, frantically trying to keep ahead of the cloud himself

"Not a chance!" Devi replied, storming back down the stairs, grabbing Johnny and hauling him back up the stairs. "You really have a martyr complex, you know that?"

 Johnny said nothing but kept trudging up the stairs.

 Lighting shook the house again and they both started to run again… running... and running until...

They suddenly hit a door.

 A big, solid wooden door...

...with no knob.

 "The HELL?" Devi asked. Johnny was already trying to open it.

 "You wouldn't have a spare meat cleaver on you, would you?" he asked.

 Devi looked down at the shirt she was wearing, which barely covered her crotch. "Sorry, fresh out."

 "We're going to have to break it down. 1...2...3!" Johnny said, ramming his thin shoulders into the door. It budged. A little. The cloud was coming up fast.

 Johnny tried again. Again the door refused to open. As he tried again, Devi held up a hand. "I've got an idea."

 She turned and faced down the cloud. "Hey, fuckfaces!" She turned and bent over. "Kiss this!"

 "THAT'S an idea?" Johnny said

 The Things roared and another bolt of lightning shot from the cloud. Devi hit the deck and yanked Johnny down by his waistband.

 When they looked back up, the door was nothing but charred splinters.

 "Yes, it is."  

 The staircase started making turns and it bought the two of them some distance as the cloud didn't seem to be able to corner as well as they could,

 Devi's legs were getting tired. She could hear the cloud far behind them down the stair case, but she knew they couldn't afford to stop.

Suddenly, Johnny made a hard left. "In here!" he ordered. He grabbed her wrist and dragged her into the next room.

.. which seemed to be full at the moment.

"Hey! It's the little shit who put us here!" One of the ungagged prisoners tied to the wall screeched.

"Repetitive. How is this going to help?" Devi asked.

"SOMEONE GET THIS DOUBLE FRIED BURRITO OUT OF MY ASS!" someone yelled.

"Trust me." Nny said, pulling a knife out of a rather unfortunate cheerleader and opening up a secret door. “Get in and start climbing."

 Devi went into the small closet and saw there was a ladder leading up. "How high does this thing go?"

 "Only three levels. But it'll get us closer to the surface faster." he told her, giving her a boost.

 "Hey, watch the hands buddy." Devi said, "There'll be plenty of time for THAT later."

 "Just climb." Nny said, wondering if she was serious.

 "You're no fun." Devi said, climbing up. "Do you fall right over?"  She had no idea why the hell she was being so silly. She figured she must be approaching hysteria. Better enjoy it before she broke down completely.

 "If we get out of this alive," Nny said, climbing up after her, "I'll let you find out."

 The trip up the ladder was surprisingly uneventful. The Things must not have known about the passageway.

 At the top Nny popped a latch and they crawled into a room crawling with roaches.
"Augh! Mr. Samsa has cloned himself!" Nny yelped.

 Devi smacked him. "Calm down. There's more than one roach in the world."

 "I thought you were done smacking me!" Nny protested.

"Just find the door out of here,” Devi said, swatting at her feet.

 Johnny strode through the roaches, apologizing repeatedly to Mr. Samsa (Insert number here) when he crushed one.

He opened a door in the wall, peeked in, and immediately shut it in a panic. "Um... let's try the other way..."

Devi could start to smell the bitter ozone of the smoke. "Do I even want to know?"

 "No." Nny said, quickly moving to another corner. They met each other on the other side of the room and Nny opened up a small hatch near the ceiling and helped Devi in.

 As he climbed up, he heard Devi's voice. "Uhh...Johnny?"

They were back in the staircase.

Devi stared at something, “Damn. Look… there’s no way out.” Johnny followed her finger and saw that the staircase was a mobius strip. Twisting itself back upon itself and started going down.

"Well, what are we supposed to do? Stay here and Die?!" Nny snapped. "There's got to be another way to go...

It was, of course that point that they realized that the entire staircase was more or less surrounded by the Things.

”We're fucked, aren't we?" Devi asked.

Johnny looked around. The cloud was huge now. It looked like the entire Mobius staircase was the only part of the house still intact.

Everywhere else was nothing but blue mist, light, and evil murderous faces.

He glanced down looking for some sort of escape when...

"Devi! When I say, jump!"

"What?" Devi looked at him incredulously. "Jump?! Are you fucking INSANE?!"

"Dammit Devi, do you trust me?"

Devi looked at him. At his eyes...and saw something that hadn't been there before. The madness was gone. Replaced by sanity. Extremely tenuous sanity, but definitely sanity.

"Y-yesss..." she said, more nervous than unsure.

She took his hand.

Johnny pointed down. "Look in the center of the loop, where everything meets.” Devi looked down...and down...and DOWN...and saw what Johnny was pointing at.

A door.

"Shit.." she whispered.

FOOLS! YOU DARED TO CHALLANGE US?!??!

They both looked up. Peering out of the cloud was a face that looked suspiciously like Rev. MEAT.

NOW THE MORTAL CLAY THAT BINDS YOU TO THIS WORLD WILL EXPIRE, BUT YOUR SOULS WILL LIVE ON WITH US IN EVERLASTING TORMENT FOR ALL OF ETERNITY!!!

 "JUMP!" Johnny cried. He squeezed Devi’s hand hard and they leaped off the staircase and fell through the cloud.

Devi closed her eyes. This was it, if they missed the door they were dead, no two ways about it.

They hit the door, screaming, and they tumbled... into the room just below the first floor where Nny had tried to rape her yesterday.

Devi blinked. "Damn..."

"Devi?" Sickness's voice chirped from inside Devi's head, "Devi, can you hear me?"

 "Sickness?" Devi blinked. Wait a minute, the voice wasn't coming from inside her head. It was coming...

FROM UPSTAIRS!

"What was that?" Nny asked.

"You heard it too?" Devi asked.

"Yeah." Nny said, getting to his feet.

"Sickness?" Devi called.

"Devi!" Tenna's voice drifted down to them.

“TENNA?" Devi yelled, "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Spooky told me to come! He said you were in danger!"

"Spooky?" Johnny asked, raising an eyebrow.

Devi sighed "Annoying squeeky toy of Tenna's." She shouted back up the stairs "What do you mean Spooky told you to come?"

Sickness's voice drifted back down to them. "Long *squeek* story. I suggest you both get your asses up here. The physics in this house are starting to lose their grip."

 

Devi took Nny's arm and dragged him over to the staircase. She took a cautious peek up the short set of stairs and made a dash for the door at the top.

She was surprised when she encountered no resistance at all.

 "Something wrong?" Nny asked, coming out of the stairway behind her.

"No... that's what's odd." Devi said. Was it bad that this was too easy?

Devi took a step forward and her foot sunk in up to her knee into the honey-like floorboards and stuck fast as they froze again.

"What the fuck?!" Devi growled as the walls suddenly started bleeding.

Johnny looked around, surprised, and started backing up to where Devi was frantically trying to fight her way out of the floor when the ever growing pool of blood began to... move. Thin spidery tentacles of the life juice began to snap like whips, trying to grab anything in the room.

Johnny did what he naturally did in ape-shit situations like this. He looked for a knife. He managed to swoop down and get a smallish one, dodging the blood tentacles, before it was swallowed up by the advancing tide. He made a couple quick, defensive gestures as he maneuvered his way over to Devi.

"Hang on." He said, starting to chip at the floor boards.

"They're making sure we don't leave." Devi said angrily, as the blood on the floor begain to broil.

Nny had most of Devi's leg out when the rumbling started.

"SHIT! They found us!" Devi said, more annoyed than scared.
"It's not coming from the floor... it's coming from the walls." Nny said thoughtfully.

That's when the walls started moving.

 Faces began appearing in the wood work, which was pulsating and taking on a horribly organic appearance.

Evil faces with impossibly long , disgusting and above all, SHARP teeth.

Devi fought to keep from throwing up as points of teeth began to rip through the membranes that the walls had become. "Oh shit." she said quietly.

"Almost got it..." Johnny said, trying to ignore what was happening. He finished what he was doing and took Devi's hands. "On three?"

Devi nodded. "One..."

"Two..." Nny said.

"THREE!" Devi pushed off with what leverage she had, while Johnny pulled with all his might. For a scrawny guy, Devi marveled again as how strong he actually was.

Her foot pulled free with a disgusting sucking sound, assorted repulsive organic bits of the house trailing after her, faliling wildly as it tried to regain it's grip. When it was on solid floor again, Devi saw her foot was covered in what looked like the gelled floorboard.

"Ugg..." Devi grimaced, throwing her arms around Johnny's shoulders as she tried to shake off the goo, "I am going to need a looong shower after this is all done."
"Let's get the hell out of here." Johnny said. They two of them made for the door, when the floor gave a huge heave, sending the two to the ground.

"The FUCK?" Devi said. She looked back at the same moment Nny did as the floor began to move in a wave pressing itself up against the ceiling, making the house shake...

"Oh Shit!" Sickness's voice yelled from just outside.

"What is it?" Devi yelled back, as the wave hit her. She and Johnny somehow scrambled at the right time and managed not to be crushed.

"The house is starting to collapse in on itself out here!" Sickness yelled back.

"We need to get the fuck out of here!" Devi cried. There was a loud roaring sound. The Things were NOT pleased.

"I'm open to suggestions!" Nny yelled back, as his knife suddenly turned into a rather odd shaped scorpion. He punched it, sending it into a corner. Several of the blood-tentacles lashed out and wrapped around his wrists.

Devi looked around. The door had disappeared, turning into some kind of particularly repulsive organ.

"Ew... squishy." She grimaced. Couldn't get out of that. And no windows around, either...
Then she spotted her backpack lying on the (for want of a better term) floor.

"I have an idea!" she told Johnny, as he fought off the last tentacle. Devi dashed across the heaving floor, snatching up her backpack as she did so. She rummaged inside and grabbed the blackened screws. She held them tightly in her hand until the pain seared through her brain. She looked up through the tears in her eyes...

...and saw a window beyond the membrane.

They were just MAKING it look like the house was going ape-shit on them, to distract them from the fact that soon there would be no chance of escape! If that was true then, the Things reach was still weak up here…

Devi clutched Sickness's screws harder, wincing at the pain as the sharp edges shredded the palm of her hand. She took small, careful steps toward the door/ unidentifyible internal organ. Reached out her hand. Felt...

The doornob.

She twisted it, trying not to pay attention to the squishing noises it made.

The Door was locked. Shit.

She drove the screws into her palm again and she maneuvered over to a nearby window.

Also locked.

Devi bit her lip, and drove her elbow through the glass.
Johnny looked up from fighting off his knife to see a normal, broken, window, suddenly melt into reality.

"How the HELL did you do that?!"

Devi tried to clutch at her bruised, but thankfully not bleeding, elbow with her fist. “Just help me open it." the said through gritted teeth.

At that point, a roar came from below them that sounded like it was coming from the bowels of Hell...or wherever the Things were coming from.

FOOLS! YOU CANNOT ESCAPE US! WE WILL DEVOUR YOUR FLESH AND USE YOUR SOULS FOR OUR PLAYTHINGS!

 The walls abruptly melted back into a normal room... just as the house itself began to get pulled down the steps... fast.

"Fuck this," Johnny said. He snatched Devi up, pulled her a couple of steps back and charged full force at the window, dragging her along for the ride.

 

 

Glass flew everywhere as they rolled onto the lawn.

"Devi!" Tenna was screaming, waving something, as she stood by her car. "OVER HERE! Get off the lawn!"

Devi and Nny staggered to their feet and started running.

The house was folding in on itself. The roof twisted and began to be sucked in. The walls bent inward, as if there was a giant vacuum in the center of the house...which Devi supposed there was.

She and Nny hit the pavement just as the lawn was going to join the house. Devi kept going and grabbed Tenna, hugging her as hard as she could.

The unearthly roar came again. A roar of anger, frustration, and hatred. The three of them held their hands to their heads as it reverberated throughout the neighborhood.

"Damn. You piss off the landlord?" Tenna asked the two.

"How the hell did you get here?" Devi asked Tenna.

“A little luck. /-squeek!-/ DAMMIT!" said a very familiar voice

Devi looked at the little lump of black and white rubber in Tenna’s hand and started to stare. "Sickness?" she asked, in disbelief.

"Any *squeek* Errrgh--any port in a storm." Sickness said, grimacing, "I wasn't in your head any more and I needed a body fast."

The wheels in Devi's mind turned rapidly. "You aren't in my head anymore?"

"No, MEAT pulled me out as you went into..." Sickness stopped, unnerved by the smile that had suddenly spread over Devi's face, "...why are you staring at me like that?

Devi snatched Spooky (Er.. Sickness) out of Tenna's hands and threw it right into the center of the closing portal.

"DEVVVVVVIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!" Sickness screamed in shock, anger and fear.

"Spooky!" Tenna yelped, mournfully as the portal winked out of existence taking the house and Sickness in her Spooky body with it.

Johnny, who had been standing by and watching all this, looked at Devi, whose grin was so wide the top of her head was in danger of falling off.  "Um, what was the point of that?" he asked

 Devi turned and gave him a LOOK. Nny quickly shut up.

"Saaay... Are you guys aware you're half nekkid?" Tenna asked lasciviously.

 "Yes, that part was fairly obvious Tenna..." Devi growled, self consciously giving the shirt she was wearing a few tugs down. She looked over at Nny who was staring at the hole in the ground where his house used to be. She went over and gently put a hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

“Well, it... It looks like they got it all this time...” Johnny said quietly

"What do you mean?" Devi asked.

“I mean, look!” Johnny said, waving a hand at the large, gaping, smoldering hole in the ground. “I’ve got nothing now! Not my clothes, not my blades, not my video games, not even my boots! I feel stripped inside and out. Even my head feels...like an empty room."

Devi considered this, then probed her own mind. It too felt oddly, empty. Roomier than it used to be.

"Like something that was there, isn't anymore?" she asked.
Johnny nodded.

They both stood there quietly, as Devi’s mind raced. She suddenly realized something. If Sickness was gone… and the Things were back in there own dimension… “No they didn't.” she said, clearly.

 “Huh?” Nny asked, confused.

“They DIDN’T get everything.” Devi said, with even more determination.

“What? Devi, look!” Nny said, indicating the smoldering ground once more, “They were pretty thorough…”
 “Johnny, tell me what you want to do right now, more than anything.” Devi gently interrupted.

Johnny forced his jaw closed, and thought about it. “I want...to....draw.” he said eventually.

 “Draw what? Happy Noodle Boy?” Devi asked anxiously.

 “No...I want to do a… landscape...a forest landscape." Johnny said, his eyes lighting up.

"A huge landscape. Rivers, mountains, trees, fields. Everything!" He turned to her and gave her the first non-psychotic smile Devi had seen in a long, long time. “I can't remember when I last wanted to draw a landscape. Hell… I can't remember the last time I wanted to draw anything other than Happy Noodle Boy.” He paused and frowned, “What about you?”

 “I want...a hot fudge sundae. And then I want to go to a movie.” Devi said, savoring the way the words felt coming out of her mouth, “...and later tonight… AFTER I get some sleep...I want to go...out.” 

“WOO!” Tenna chirped from the sidelines

Devi ignored her friend, and turned back to Nny. Her eyes were wide in disbelief and unsure hope. “Johnny, do you hear any voices in your head, other than your own?”

Johnny closed his eyes and searched deep into his much-abused brain. Finally he opened them, the same emotions fighting in his eyes. “No...” he said, confused.
Devi smiled. “Neither do I.”

“Does this mean...” Nny asked, frightened.
Devi nodded. “We're free.”

“Free...” Nny said disbelieving, “God... I've never been free... it's so strange...” he stepped away from the girls and ran a hand over his face. A smile broke over his face, and he suddenly started running helter-skelter over the street.  “I want to SCREAM at the top of my lungs! I want to dance like a monkey in the street!” he stopped moving and found himself back in Devi’s gaze again. He froze. “I want... I want to...” he stammered. He looked deep into Devi’s eyes for a long moment before getting a very ‘to hell with it’ look on his face. He stepped close to Devi and, unsteadily grabbing her at the waist and neck, pulled her close to him and kissed her long and hard.

“MMMPPPHmmmmm” Devi muttered. She fought it for a split second, out of habit, before she closed her eyes, closed her arms around him and melted into the kiss. She really did feel like she was melting… or starting to float away from the ground… She’d never been kissed like this. Hell, she’d slept with guys and it hadn’t been close to this. So warm, so personal, so close… it wasn’t the fact that they’d done so much shit to each other, or even that they friends…He knew her… SHE knew him… It was if they just fit together, and were always meant to… If they had just needed this moment to realize it… It was incredible…

After a long moment they separated, silently moving away from the other just enough to start breathing again.

 “Wow.” Devi said, finally.

”Yeah...wow.” Nny said, swallowing hard and taking a sudden interest in the pavement. “Um, I don't suppose...I mean, you said you wanted to...er, that is...”

 “Spit it out!” Tenna yelled, bouncing on the sidelines.

”Well, I mean...um...” Nny said, nervously ringing the back of his neck, “would you...since you were gonna go anyway...”

”Yes, Johnny C.?” Devi asked, amused.

Johnny took a deep breath. “Wouldyouliketogooutwithmetonight?” he asked, hurriedly.

Devi blinked. She never thought he would have the guts to do it. Nny could still surprise her. But was it wise to say yes? “Well, I...” she stammered.

 “A REAL date this time.” Nny said seriously, pulling back so he could take his hands in hers and look into her eyes. “No bizzare statements, no other-dimensional beings screwing with our heads...and no knives. No knives of any kind.”

Devi realized she was blushing. God she wanted to… More than anything else. But it was so soon after all this insanity…  “Well, I...I mean, it's been a while and...and I need to—“ she stammered.

”She'd love to!” Tenna chirped

 “Tenna!” Devi yelled.

 “What? You were gonna say yes anyway.” Tenna said, happy she was finally part of the conversation.

“But I wanted to—“ Devi growled before giving it up in exasperation. She turned back to Nny, who was still nerviously waiting for her answer. She smiled. “Yes, Nny, I do want to go out with you.”

Nny’s face broke into a huge smile. “Yes! Allright, I'll just go home and...” he turned around to the huge gaping hole in the ground that was once his life. He turned back. “Er.. I don't suppose I could ask one more thing, could I?” he asked sheepishly.

 “Well, I'm not the only one who—“ Devi tried to say.

 “No problem!” Tenna interupted, again. “You can stay with us! We need another person to pay rent anyway.”

 “But we only have a two bedroom apartment.” Devi pointed out.

Tenna rolled her eyes. “Like THAT'S gonna be a problem.”

“What do you mean by that?” Devi asked, annoyed.

 “Well, he's gonna be using your room isn't he?” Tenna reasoned, “He can’t sleep on the COUCH all the time, he’ll have to share your bed… heh… among other things…” Tenna wiggled her eyebrows.

Devi growled. “Tenna, shut up. Shut up now, or I'll tell all your friends just how MUCH you loved Spooky.”

"They already know. I have pictures up on Naughty Neighbors.com!" Tenna said defiantly. “And since when are YOU complaining?” Devi growled again.

“Rent?” Johnny asked absently. Then a look crossed his face like someone who realizes that the piano is falling and they can’t get out of the way in time. “Oh SHIT. RENT…”

The full moon abruptly came out from behind the clouds, illuminating the three as Devi and Tenna kept arguing about the living arrangements. It was still high in the sky when they wearily piled into Tenna’s car and finally drove away.

 

 

 

The End