Strangers

Who the fuck was this guy? I lived in a communal home with a bunch of other people, but this guy, I had never seen before. I woke up and went into the kitchen to discover this very tall and solid-looking man, dicing vegetables with unreal speed and velocity. Nobody else seemed to notice that he was making this salad with bizarre and impossible skill. I asked one of the usual guys who this new person was, but he did not seem to hear my question. Was I going insane or what?
I quickly thought back to a recent excursion to a nearby downtown area. It was late at night and many people were out walking down the old cobblestoned street. I remember we were passing this ominous looking three-floor home that looked like it was straight from an HP Lovecraft short story, and a girl who lived there ran outside, looking extremely flustered. Her eyes were wide and she looked strung out to the point of insanity, but I didn't think much of it. Soon, however, the whole street went pitch black; all light sources exterminated. The girl screamed and when the lights returned she had disappeared. Everyone around me seemed fairly surprised but most went on without a second glance. Crazy hippies, people thought. However, as I was walking away from the strange scene I had witnessed, an older woman approached me and said that we had all just witnessed an act of a demon, summoned by Satan himself. She seemed a little crazy but I listened to what she had to say. "The demons are here in preparation for 2012...you need to protect yourself! They easily consume anyone who is not strong-willed enough. Protect yourself! They will often take the shape of humans..." She said a little bit more but nothing too important. At the time I didn't take much heed to what she said, I got a little weirded out, but that's all.
Anyways, I thought back to this because the situation I was now engulfed in seemed extremely odd, and for some reason, this new house guest was emanating extremely potent vibes that spoke of danger and hostility; even though he masked these with a regular body and a strange smile. Also, all the regulars at the house seemed that they were in a trance. As I watched our new chef prepare an extravagant caesar salad with unreal ease, I knew this situation was just plain wrong.
I tried asking another one of the regulars who this new guy was. She paused, looked at me for a couple seconds, and then departed the interaction with a drunken smile. What the hell was happening here? Everyone was acting like it was a beautiful, regular, summer day. Well I knew this wasn't Mr. Roger's Fucking Neighborhood.
Suddenly everyone who had been frozen in the kitchen, watching our guest, started exiting the room. They seemed like they were trying to run from something, but they still had the bizarre smiles on their faces all the while. I followed them into one bedroom and we were all standing in there, it seemed like we were hiding from something. One of the guys went to lock the door but the new house chef smashed the door open right at the same moment. He had a butcher's knife in one hand, but he still had the same smile, and so did everyone else. This scenario was messed up on too many levels.
House chef just stood there among everyone else. The room just looked like a bunch of people hanging out, with weird stoned smiles, but no one was talking. I needed to get the hell out of here. I knew things were going to turn ugly soon. House chef started to walk around, going from person to person, simply staring at each. I waited for my perfect chance and sprinted out of the room, around the corner, and straight up the stairs. I ran to the front door and quickly opened it, my heart beating fast. With a sigh of relief I was now outside on the front lawn. An old man who we got many of our vegetables from sat in a lawn chair looking through a window into the kitchen.
"I knew I shouldn't have left all my vegetables out on the counter. That guy chopped them all up before I could even say anything!"
I asked him if he knew who the guy was.
"I really have no idea, he came here this morning. Seems awfully strange.."
Kill. I had to kill this new guy. I could sense his emotions start to explode.
I told the old man that I had to go and I ran around the house. I saw some pool sticks laying on the ground and I thought that would make the perfect weapon. The girl nearby told me that I couldn't use them because they would break. She knew exactly what I was going to do with them, without me even uttering a word. I couldn't pause at this strange occurrence, however, I had to continue on.
A few people sat outside around a small campfire further down on the side of the building. Without even asking, one of the guys handed me a huge, half-full glass bottle of absinthe. This would be perfect. I took the bottle without hesitancy and ran to the small porch area on the back of the house. House chef was there, and so were a handful of other people. He had his knife. He started to raise it. Without thinking I sprinted all my weight as fast as I could and smashed the bottle into the man's head. It didn't break, but he stumbled backwards. I tried again. The bottle still didn't break, but this time the man was sitting on his ass on the ground. I went for the third attempt and this time the bottle smashed completely over his forehead. Blood and warm absinthe flooded everywhere.
He got up and claws emerged from the skin on his hands. He jumped at me and tried to slash my face, but I put my arms up in time. Three deep cuts started to unload my lifeblood from the back of my right forearm. I yelled at him. "FUCK YOU! I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!"
He growled back at me, and lunged his weight towards me while I was on the ground, but I moved just in time, making him hit the floor hard. While he was face-down I quickly grabbed a big shard of glass from the broken bottle and I slashed the back of his neck with as much force as I could muster. The glass cut his flesh like butter and his head was now lopsided, hanging by one side of his neck, but he was still moving, and still furious. He stumbled to his feet and stood there, staring at me with intense hatred. The awkward smile returned to his bleeding, dirty, ruined face. He looked like he was some kind of science experiment gone wrong, with blood pouring from the back of his neck and the top of his forehead like Niagara Falls.
In another moment I could not see anything but darkness and I could not move. Intense fear froze my body and I thought back to the old woman from town. She was right. The apocalypse was coming. And here I was, I wouldn't ever experience it. In another moment I was dead.
We are all just a bunch of walking fucking corpses.