He waited and listened, carefully avoiding sticking his head over the opening to look inside.  That was a lesson learned the hard way on the first day of stabilization.  Creatures had spontaneously appeared across the globe when the three-day countdown hit zero.  Nightmare creatures that should not have existed even in the worst horror vids.  One of them had materialized in his basement.  It proceeded to wreak havoc among the items stored down there, searching for human prey.  His sister had heard the noise the same time as the others, but she had been closer to the basement door.  As Allistor ran to stop her, she opened the door and flicked on the light switch.  A tentacled arm wrapped around her torso and yanked her downward with such force that he’d heard her spine snap, cutting off her scream of terror and pain.

Blinking away the tears caused by that memory, Allistor heard the echo of his voice from below, but no other sound.  His hopes for their survival plummeted.  There hadn’t really been time for them to move out of earshot in the tunnel. Her failure to respond didn’t bode well.   He tried again, “Are you hurt?  I can help you.  The titan has moved on; it’s safe to come out.”  He cringed at that last statement.  There really wasn’t anyplace safe anymore, above or below ground.

A soft and wet rustling sound drifted up out of the hole.  Allistor instantly fell back away from the opening, then scooted on his butt still farther.   He knew that sound.  He’d heard it in his basement.  Made by one of those things called an Octopoid that had taken his sister.

That was it.  If the woman and her daughter were down there with that thing, there was nothing he could do for them.  They were gone.  Likely their corpses were tucked in some corner waiting to be consumed.

Anger flashed within him.  He was sick of these things killing his people.  His family, his friends.  It had taken two days and half a dozen close calls, but he and his father had figured out how to kill the thing that ate Leah.

They were sensitive to fire, for one thing.  And acid, especially in powder form.  Regular old Comet cleaning powder ate away at their skin quite effectively.  And their bodies were vulnerable at each of the spots where a tentacle connected with its trunk.  A lucky knife throw from Allistor as the thing charged up the stairs toward them had struck it in what he thought of as its armpit, causing it to scream and thrash before falling back down the stairs.