Can't dance your body away.
Turn around and make some noise.
The music lasts only today.
So, kick it up and dump the toys.
Can't dance your body away.
Spilled drinks and broken ice.
Forget what all the others say.
Fill life up with love and spice.
The music pounded through Rieka's head, the kind of bass reserved for rock concerts and raves. She lay on the ground cloaked in the smell of stale alcohol, her headache gradually lessening, the tile floor cool beneath her cheek.
Eventually she opened her eyes to a dirty wall and the pulsing lights reflected off of it. Pulling her arms beneath her, she turned towards the center of the room, bracing herself against the wall. The first thing she noticed was the pulsing lights reflected from the disco ball at the center of the massive room, then she recovered enough to notice the hundreds of dancers gyrating to the music. It was all so wrong.
The last thing she remembered at the party was the bodies of dead, with a man with a gun walking towards her, the weapon leveled at her. There was a flash and a bang, then she was on the floor.
Her boyfriend! Parker had stayed home to study for his exams! She reached into her back pocket and pulled out here cellphone. The screen remained stubbornly blank as she tried to turn the device on, each second stretching into an eternity. She flipped it over to try and reset it by taking the battery out, only to find that the compartment was empty.
She looked around, on the verge of tears, before gathering herself up and walking over to one of the dancers, a man in a flashy jacket and shorts.
"Hey!" She shouted over the music,"Can I use your phone?" Either he didn't hear her, or ignored her, continuing his absurd wiggling.
"Please", she waved her hand in front of his face to no avail.
She pushed him in frustration, but he seemed to roll with the blow and recovered to continue his dancing. She stomped her foot in frustration and began wonder what to do next. It was all so strange. She stood there for a while on the edge of the dance floor, lost in the music. At some point she must have fallen down, because she found herself getting up off the floor again.
The man she had pushed earlier was gone, replaced by another strangely dressed woman. Working up her strength, she decided to leave the club. Rieka had no idea what was going on, she just wanted to get out. Pushing her way past the flailing arms of the other dancers, she made her way across the dance floor.
At what seemed like hours, she arrived to the front. Two bouncers stood on either side of the entrance, each as slab of meat as faceless as the sliding glass doors they stood guard over. Each wore a dark suit and sunglasses and neither of them seemed to notice when she approached. The doors slid open with a smooth "woosh" and she took her first step outside. There was nothing but darkness, the lively street the club was supposed to be on was gone, the light spilling out into a complete and empty black.
"I wouldn't go out there if I were you," a man sat next to one of the bouncers, dressed in an almost normal t-shirt and jeans.
"What?" Rieka stopped and stared at the sudden apparition.
"I said, you shouldn't go out there. There's these things, they get you. Sarah . . . Sarah never came back."
"Your crazy!" Rieka backed out the door and into the darkest darkness she had ever known. Everything was gone. The only thing there was the entrance to the club, with its buzzing neon sign. There were no closely packed buildings like she remembered, only the pitch black of nothing.
She began walking, stuffing her phone in her back pocket as she plodded on.
"Thank goodness I didn't wear heels" she thought to herself. In the distance the light of the club shrank to a small dot, then to a speck, as she moved farther and farther away into the dark realm. Then she heard the first snarl.
It was a low sound, almost inaudible in the silence around her, coming from off to her left. She turned just in time to feel a piercing pain in her arm as something bit deep into it. Whatever it was was smooth and wet to the touch, almost like some kind of aquatic thing.
Rieka let out a scream and the thing detached itself from her arm, the sound of its footsteps now audible and circling her. She heard more then one and realized that she was not along in the darkness. There were at least a few . . . something.
She couldn't take it anymore, she had to get out of here, even if it was back towards that strange club. Rieka took off running, the padding of a dozen feet behind her, urging her forward. But she just couldn't keep going. One of the creatures landed on her back, the weight forcing her forward and into the smooth, cold ground.
They were upon here, tearing at her back and arms, trying to get past them to her face. She was sure she was going to die . . .
She heard a squeal, then a voice.
"Get up!" She uncurled to see the guy from the entrance, his shirt ragged and torn. He held a flashing blue light, presumably one from the club. As one of the dark shapes jumped at him, he swung the light to meet it, sending it flying with a squeal, black blood splattering around them.
"Get up! I left Sarah to these things, but I'm not gonna let them get you!"
Rieka jumped to her feet and took off running, the man following behind her. They were getting closer to the club now, the welcoming light a relief as the ran through the sliding doors.
The creatures attempted to follow but were met by the bouncers. The first one tried to leap through the door, only to be caught by a massive pair of hands and broken over a knee. The other bouncer pulled an assault rifle, seemingly from nowhere and began to fire on the shapes rushing towards them. A few made it through, however, and ran into the crowd, tearing into the dancers. They didn't even seem to notice, and kept attempting to right themselves even as they died, their blood staining the floor.
The bouncer with the rifle moved to block the door while the other ran into the crowd. The shapes, now revealed to be dog-like, ran deeper into the club, leading the bouncer on.
"I just gotta see this," Rieka's rescuer took off after the bouncer, still clutching the light. Rieka followed behind, not wanting to be alone in the crowd.
When they caught up with the bouncer, it was in a corner, surrounded by the dogs. It assumed a defensive stance, then all of the creatures leapt at once, overbalancing it. It fell into the wall behind it, gouging a large hole in the apparently thin wall. They tore through its suit and blood once again splattered the floor. The guy ran forward, wielding the light like a hammer, beating at the dogs until they resembled a pulp. It was too late for the bouncer, who remained motionless, lodged halfway through the wall.
Blood dripped from the now dented light as the guy removed his now ruined t-shirt and sank to the floor. Rieka sat next to him, picking up the shirt amd tearing it into strips.
"What just happened?" Rieka pulled on of the strips tight around her arm.
"Hell if I know, I don't even know where I am. I thought I had just toked too much or something, but this pain hurts too much for this to be an hallucination . . ." he turned to look at her.
"You were there right? That guy came in and we all got shot up, right?"
"That was the last thing I remember, before I woke up here. Honestly, you should bandage those." She motioned as the lacerations on his sides.
"Here", she leaned over a began tieing strips of shirt around him,"well at least we know we aren't dead."
"A lotta good that does us, oh I'm Orin, B T W."
"I'm Rieka."
"Huh, funny name," he stood up and walked over to the bouncer,"poor guy, I wonder if the other one knows anything about this place." He glanced through the hole.
"Whoa, Rieka, check this out." She pulled herself to her feet and moved next to him. Through the hole was something akin to mission control, computers everywhere, each displaying various statistics about incomprehensible things.
Orin pulled a phone and a short cord out of his pocket and jumped through the wall. On the other side he bent underneath one of the desks and a computer turned off suddenly.
"Hah!" Rieka herd his shout of success, "It works, now if only my phone hadn't broke when . . . when . . . me n' Sarah had tried to leave."
Rieka clambered after him," let me see you phone."
"Here," he tossed it to her as she came out the other side. She caught it deftly and held it up against hers. They were the same model.
"Hey! We have the same phone," she rushed over to him, pushing him back and plugging the cord into the slot on her phone. The display lit up and the joyous little startup jingle rang out as the cellphone activated. 3 bars!
Rieka fumbled with the keys as she dialed. 9 . . . 1 . . . . 1 . . . .
It rang once, then went straight to the busy signal.
"Like I expected that to work. This is like something out of a horror movie." Orin looked over.
"Huh?"
"911 has a busy signal."
"Damn, that's strange." Rieka bit into her lip.
"I know . . ."
Fumbling with the keys a little less this time, Rieka dialed the number to her boyfriend's cell. There was a pause, and then time stopped. It rang, once, twice, three times.
Rieka held her breath as the line was picked up.
"Hello?"
