By Laura Shell

Their names were Nash, Bishop, McManus, and Hooper. A woman and three men. Nash brandished her two .45s. Bishop had two .50 Desert Eagles. McManus hated guns, so he'd brought his two Damascus kukri blades the size of small children. Hooper had a .223 long rifle with a scope. These four weren't fucking around. They had a mission, a destiny to fulfill. 

They'd all had the same vision — to meet at this particular spot, on this particular day and time, to battle this particular foe. Why the four of them? They had no idea. They had plenty of questions but no answers. So they resigned themselves to do what their visions had foretold.

The brown creature stood four storeys, had six legs, skin like a snake's, and a ginormous round mouth with rows of shark-like teeth. And it smelled. If anything, that was the main reason to kill it. Sure, it destroyed buildings and cars and anything in its wake, including living beings, but it was the smell...Jesus fucking Christ. It was a combination of decaying flesh and a burning dumpster full of dirty diapers.

The creature roared as it appeared between two office buildings, crushing parked cars along the way and sending white spittle into the air, which landed ten feet in front of the four with a splat. The four winced due to its odiferous offense, then looked at each other and steeled themselves. 

"Fuck this mother fucking thing," Hooper exclaimed.

"Yeah," the rest of them yelled, with fists in the air.

Those with guns blasted the smelly bastard, causing it to roar louder as their bullets pierced its scaly flesh. Then McManus charged at it with his blades. 

***

The four sat on a curb, exhausted. They were covered with the creature's bodily fluids, be its spittle or its green blood or its green internal juices, or its green shit and piss, or a mixture of some or all of that. And now, the smell was worse. It surrounded the decimated corpse of the creature and everything around it for blocks, maybe miles.

People who were in the city at the time of the battle came out from their hiding places and inspected the scene — the dead creature and the four who had made it dead and the mess of body liquids and body parts and internal organs in the streets. All of them covered their noses and mouths. Some of them vomited; the smell was that bad.

A hissing sound emitted from the creature's direction. The middle of its skull parted. A tiny humanoid crawled out in a puff of green smoke and coughed. It was about three feet tall and covered with bright red hair. It stumbled toward the four, holding something in its hands — a rough-cut diamond the size of a pie. It handed it to Nash.

In a raspy voice, it said, "You win." It limped away.

Nash scowled at the stone, then tossed it to the ground. She stood and yelled. "Fuck that mess. How do we get rid of this smell?"

The tiny thing turned slowly, then laughed like a hyena. "You don't."

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