It was quiet. Too quiet. I would have expected some kind of animal life around, but there were no signs anywhere. The last time this had happened was before we had discovered Rose. I tapped Stanley and signaled him to remain quiet, then slowly moved up towards a small amount of cover near the shopping center. We had made it most of the way without issue, encountering nothing but empty houses and burnt-up ruins that had been smashed apart by the monstrosities. The difference was, throughout our walk we could still hear birds in the distance. Here there was nothing. The shopping center itself looked fine, with the glass door entrance unshattered, and no obvious collapsed portions of the building.

We made our way slowly closer to the doors and looked inside. Shelves were tossed haphazardly across the ground, with various products spread beside them. It was as if a bomb had gone off, with perforations in the walls, and charred marks everywhere. There was no obvious sign of anything or anyone though. So far it seemed safe enough. We pushed open the door and entered.

A skittering sound to my left caused me to jump as I stifled a yell that threatened to emerge from my throat. I was hopeful that it was just a rat, but not optimistic about my chances.

A voice came from the darkness. "Hello? Is someone there? Please help me, I'm trapped over here." It sounded like a young woman.

I looked over at Stanley and recieved a shake of his head. He pointed towards his head, tapping it twice to show that the voice was a part of the psychic link. We were indeed dealing with a parasite. The skittering noise continued, wrapping around to my right side.

"Welcome to my web said the spider to the fly." The voice was similar, but distorted; as if someone had taken a recording and scratched it. "I see the pretender is also here, good good. It will make it so much easier when the annoying brat is dead." Well, there went my plan of using Stanley to trick the parasites and kill them. Instead it seemed as if he had become a target.

I saw a flash of movement between two of the support pillars. I used my body as best as I could to hide the bottle of vodka I pulled out of my backpack. There would only be one shot at this. I uncorked the bottle, stuffing a small strip of cloth into it, and re-corked it.

"The pretender? Who might that be?" I asked.

"Has he not told you? Your friend there is a parasite. Although he refuses to acknowledge it, even when prompted by The Three. Instead, he remains in his feeble human disguise and shuts down all contact. The Three have excommunicated him, and given all of us permission to kill him on sight. Lucky for this one that it gets to do so, maybe they will reward their servant when it has completed their task." I

"Why tell us your plan though? Isn't it counter productive to reveal this much information to an enemy who can just walk out the door? And who the hell are The Three?"

"The Three are our leaders, our saviors. After The One crashed on this planet we found little food, and chose to freeze ourselves rather than suffer starvation. After decades trapped in the The Great Freeze, The Three delivered us to lands of plentiful food and heat, where we will propagate and rebuild to expand anew."

Yep, definitely over sharing. But the more information I gained the better. I started slowly backing away, pulling Stanley along with me. "Well, we'd best be going. I wouldn't want to prevent you from continuing your expansionism, and it seems you have this place pretty well secured so far."

"It seems you assume this one is alone here. An oversight that will be corrected ere long. Furthermore, you won't be surviving long enough for it to matter." A second voice came from directly ahead of us as an amalgam of muscle and sinew revealed itself. Cords of flesh with seemingly random shards of bone imbedded formed long thing legs, jointed twice. The legs, of which there were 8, led to a football sized knot with more shards forming something resembling teeth. There were no eyes, just deep divots that formed the shape of sockets. I wasn't sure how the thing could even see, but it navigated perfectly fine.

"It will be nice to finally have a meal. We haven't eaten since... what was it? Yesterday night?" A third spider-like monstrosity came from our left, and a fourth one appeared behind us. We were surrounded on all sides. I tried to come up with some sort of plan, but it all boiled down to chuck the bottle and run for it. Not the best plan ever, but considering the circumstances I was sure I'd be forgiven.

I quickly lit up the cocktail and held it out threateningly. "Back off, or everyone goes up in flames."

The original one, who had come out of the darkness by now, laughed at my proclamation. "You really think a small bit of fire will stop these ones? A shame we won't be able to bring you into the fold, it would have been nice to gain another servant of The Three. Instructions were given to kill The Pretender as well as any of their companions."

That sounded like our queue to dip. I threw the Molotov and it crashed directly in the face of the the front creature. It screeched, swiping at the air in front of it with blind rage and pain. I grabbed Stanley and we bolted. I was willing to bet they either operated on psychic radar, or some sort of extreme hearing. Given the situation of the first, if it was hearing they'd be blind and unable to see us making our way away from them. We retreated deeper into the store, as scuttling began to follow us.