*** Chapter Eight ***

*** The night of day 2 ***

The creatures returned as expected, this time they weren’t as afraid to approach and attacked the house directly. They struggled to find a way in, but once one window was broken it became like a signal for the creatures to attack all the windows. By incidence they discovered that the planks of wood were all that were keeping them from their prey.

Unfortunately for the creatures, by the time they figured a way into the house they had already wasted far too much time and were forced to retreat before the defenses took much damage.

Many were rattled by the events of the night, it was feared that the next night would be a harder night than this, but even with spirits down several groups made their way out in the morning to search for their lost kin.

*** The Family Day 3 ***

“I’m sorry,” Raphael said to his wife. There was no need to explain what he meant, she understood.

Her cries haunted the souls of all who failed to find her child, her wails of grief silenced the house. There was so much they were robbed of, but it was the first time they felt they had utterly failed, that a life could be lost in this world. The only thing found was a bloodstained battlefield full of feathers and dried blood, but no bodies.

The spirits of everyone were sunk low, none had the will to work that day.

When night fell and the night monsters inevitably returned the men fought hard, harder and more violent than was necessary. They allowed the creatures to breach some of the windows so that they could slaughter the monsters that came through. Fueled by the agony of loss they battled with abandon, even as mindless as the creatures seemed they appeared to hesitate from the sheer brutality exacted on them.

The women had to become involved in the fighting to help move the bodies out of the way and manage the blood that was slickening the ground with whatever means were available.

The men fought with what they could find. They used hammers, axes, machetes, knives, hand crafted wooden staves, sharpened stick spears, and even boiling water. The fireplace had been purposed for the production of boiling water, the children watched over this task maintaining the fire and alerting the adults whenever the next pot was ready.

Fighting gave them a purpose, it washed away the loss with each and every kill. Martha made her sorrow known in the fighting while others sought redemption..

In one particular moment of that night, several of these creatures had managed to crawl through the strong defenses of the largest room, which also happened to be the room where the boiling water was being made and where the children were.

Martha had been running back in that particular moment to return a pot and reload with another. Three of those creatures had made their way almost out of the defenses, several nailed boards and stacked furniture.

“Go upstairs!” she screamed at the children grabbing the first of the creatures to go through the defenses. The children screamed and ran calling out for their parents as they ran.

Martha took the creature she got ahold of and using the rage in her heart, she handled the creature as it was no more than a child in her hands. It could not protect itself or defend against her rage as it was pulled out of the hole it was crawling through and tossed straight into the fire that boiled the water. It screamed in agony, but was quickly silenced by the pot that crashed against its face.

Once...twice…

It did not land again.

The creature threw itself out of the fire and writhed in agony as its flesh still burned, had it been capable of understanding horror it would have recoiled from the unrelenting torture and deaths the other two would soon face..

What she had done to the first had taken mere seconds, the second of the three creatures had managed to clear the barricade and had started to lunge towards Martha. She had seen it coming, her senses were spiked, there was so much adrenaline and force coursing through her body that the creature had only doomed itself by throwing itself her way.

In a feat of unbelievable martial combat, she turned away from the creature that she had been beating into the fire and swung her pot at the creature that now threw itself at her. It recoiled from the strike, though it had intended to crash into her and bring her down with it, the creature instead collided with the chimney, its left limbs swung into the blaze by the momentum.

Before it could even register the agony of the burns to its limbs it felt two hand hands grab it from its head and neck. Its body felt the force of a giant throw it into the cavern of fire. IT screeched and wailed as its body burned, it could not flee the pain as a foot was planted on its back keeping it in place. It found salvation only after the third broke through the defenses and tackled its tormentor.

As the third of these creatures attempted to tackle her, she swung her body around bringing her elbow to come crashing against the side of its head even as its arms clasped around her waist. The weight of the creature pushed her back and knocked her down, but the elbow to the head had done its job and stunned it long enough for her to gain the advantage as they both came crashing down.

She used her weight to turn them both around so that she landed on top, as they came down she struck it in the eye. Her fist was clenched with the thumb down and across her fingers while her middle finger was at the forefront of the fist, her son had called it a frog punch. It isn't effective against the body, but against something as soft as an eye, it dealt exceptional damage. It was strange that she would remember something like that at this moment, it only made her miss her son more. Her tears threatened to quell the fury inside of her.

Their battle ended there, several men poured into the room separating the two.

The creature was slaughtered, the men that had charged in had been fueled by the fear and rage of what could have happened to their children. What Martha did to these creatures paled in comparison as to what the last creature suffered at the hands of several men, but the children would never forget who saved them.

*** The Family Day 4 ***

After the intense fighting of the night most of the family rested up until noon, a few remained awake to move corpses out of the house. The creatures were mindless and while several people had minor wounds no one had died from the fighting.

The men quickly got themselves patched up, and under the direction of the older uncles, they started working on building up defenses for the house. With the availability of bamboo the defenses were built up quicker. The light weight material allowed for the quick utilization of the material in construction. The bamboo itself could be transported down the river by using the natural forces of the river’s current.

They largely focused on boarding up the windows and doors by constructing barriers on the outside. It was nearly dusk by the time the last of the windows were barricaded, they were simple but sturdy fortifications.

The women and children had remained to tend to the interior of the house while the men constructed the defenses. They removed the corpses and cleaned up the blood and gore as well as the weapons and they did their best with the clothing. Most of the men had to work in just a pair of shorts, though some had to do so in their boxers so that their clothing could be washed and dried. The women didn’t get as dirty, but with only children around some did divest themselves to their underwear.

They used the generator in the storage to power the dryer. There had been discussion about saving the gasoline, but it was agreed that keeping some hygiene was important. They could get sick from all the blood and gore if they didn’t take care of themselves and without medicine readily available, some people could even wind up dead.