The sound was a flat, heavy, almost rhythmic drag against the hardwood stairs. A combination of instinctual animalistic drive and the deliberate weighted ascent of something with dense, functional muscle.

I frantically leaned back against the bathroom door, my heels sliding against the floor. Through the walls, I heard it reach the landing. There was no sniffing, as it had no nose. No searching tilt of the head because it had no ears. It couldn't possibly know where I hid without eyes. Instead, it moved with a seemingly unearned kinetic certainty. With no discernible sensory input, hunting should be impossible. Yet it knew exactly where to find me.

Its unnervingly targeted shambling ended on the other side of the door. A few seconds passed that felt like weeks.Then came the impact.

The door bowed and rattled, hinges groaning and giving as several hundred pounds of raw, hairless, sinewy power slammed into it. Splinters broke lose and flew past me, followed by a large uneven chunk. Vascular, thick-fingered hands gripped the jagged new opening and pulled. Its skin was vaguely translucent and taught over cords of muscle like braided steel. The door began to split, becoming a series of strips and scraps.

The head followed; a pale, vacant dome. Below the blank slate, a jaw dropped open. It was a massive hinge of pure power, filled with several rows of clenched crags of teeth designed for both tearing flesh and grinding femur.

The door finally gave way as I jumped across the bathroom.

It lunged, a roaring mass of heat and aggression. The "face" tilted toward me, guided by some tactile sense I couldn't understand. I grabbed the porcelain lid of the toilet tank while the creature swung wild, reaching hastily for any limb it could find. As the creature’s jaws snapped shut inches from my throat with a sound like a hammer hitting an anvil, I swung.

The porcelain collided against that smooth, pale skull. Again. Again. And again. It slumped, dense weight nearly crushing my legs as it slid against me to the floor. I stood there gasping, hands shaking as I looked down at the twitching abhorrent wreck of a human adjacent flesh digesting machine. Vile, offensive odor from l almost black blood made me gag as my eyes watered. Too much more of this and I'd be throwing up, nursing a splitting headache or both. Its burnt plum hue spreading, smearing and steaming under my feet like hot grease as I stepped over the dead naked lump.

I thought I had won.

Then, from the hallway, I heard more grunting, groaning and roaring. Beneath was a chorus of dull footsteps. Three or four more of them had cleared the stairs, steps growing louder. Their vocalizations weren't refined, communication or even signs of self-awareness. Just immediate expressions of effort. They progressed onward in that heavy, muscular lumbering, massive jaws already beginning to grind and click in anticipation. One of them noticed me and hissed.