Chapter 2: The Acid Kiss

Chapter 2: The Acid Kiss

A strangled scream ripped from Reagan’s throat as the monstrous mouse launched itself through the air. Instinct, not thought, took over. She slammed her foot on the brake, throwing herself sideways against the driver's side door. The car jolted to a halt, and the creature, mid-lunge, was thrown off-course. It hit the dashboard with a wet smack, leaving a sizzling trail of green ooze on the vinyl before tumbling onto the floor mat.

For a heartbeat, there was silence, broken only by Reagan's ragged gasps and the frantic thumping of her own heart. The thing on the floor twitched, righting itself with unnatural speed. Its milky eyes, blind and seething, swiveled in her direction.

Contain it. The thought was a single, cold shard of clarity in the firestorm of her panic. She couldn’t leave it loose in her car. She couldn’t let it out.

Her eyes darted around the cabin. Her purse, her phone, a half-empty water bottle—all useless. Then she saw the plastic tub it had escaped from, still lying on the passenger seat, the lid shattered but the container mostly intact. With a surge of adrenaline, Reagan grabbed the tub. The edges of the broken lid were sharp against her palm. She ignored the sting.

The creature hissed and scrambled towards her, its tiny claws clicking on the plastic floor mats. Reagan didn't hesitate. She lunged forward, slamming the tub down over the monster, trapping it. It thrashed wildly beneath the cloudy plastic, its enraged hissing muffled. Using her foot, she scraped the whole mess—tub and creature—against the passenger-side door, pinning it there.

She fumbled with the gear stick, her hand shaking so badly it took two tries to slam the car into drive. Her foot stomped on the accelerator. The tires squealed on the gravel, spitting stones as the car shot back onto the road. She drove with a wild, desperate focus, her gaze flicking between the road and the twitching plastic container pinned by her foot. The green slime was already beginning to pool at the edges, eating away at the floor mat. Smoke, thin and acrid, curled up from the floor.

She didn't know where she was going, only that she couldn't be alone with this. She needed a witness. She needed someone to see this impossible horror and tell her she wasn’t losing her mind. She needed Nikki.

The ten-minute drive felt like an eternity. She screeched into the Petropolis parking lot, taking up two spaces, and killed the engine. Her hand was on the door handle before the car had even fully settled. She kept her foot pressed firmly against the container, her mind racing. How to get it inside?

She yanked the floor mat out from under the tub, bundling the container in the smoky, dissolving rubber. It was a clumsy, precarious package. Holding it at arm's length as if it were a bomb, she sprinted towards the automatic doors of the store.

"Nikki!" she yelled, her voice raw. The cheerful welcome jingle felt like a mocking laugh.

Nikki appeared from behind a towering display of dog food bags, her face a mask of concern that quickly morphed into confusion at the sight of Reagan. "Reagan? What happened? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Worse," Reagan choked out, moving past her and heading for the back of the store. "In here. Now."

She led the way not to the breakroom, but to the large, claustrophobic stockroom in the back. A maze of towering metal shelves laden with hundred-pound bags of kibble, aquariums, and endless cardboard boxes, it was the one place in the store with a solid steel door.

"What is that?" Nikki asked, her voice trembling as she followed Reagan into the windowless room. The smell of dust and cardboard was thick in the air.

Reagan carefully set her foul-smelling bundle on the concrete floor. "It's Butters."

She peeled back the half-melted floor mat. Through the cracked and crazed plastic of the tub, Nikki saw it. The unhinged jaw. The blind, white eyes. The frenzied, twitching movements. And the slime. The terrifying, glowing green slime that was actively bubbling against the inside of the container.

Nikki’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes impossibly wide. "Oh god. Oh my god, what is that? That's not him. What happened?"

"I don't know," Reagan said, her voice shaking. "The vet… they were supposed to put him down. I was driving back and it just… came back."

The creature inside threw itself against the side of the tub with a loud crack. Nikki shrieked and jumped back, stumbling into a stack of empty fish tanks.

"Be careful!" Reagan snapped, her nerves frayed to the breaking point.

"We have to call someone! The police! Animal control!" Nikki fumbled for her phone, her fingers failing to unlock the screen.

"And tell them what? That a zombie mouse is trying to melt its way out of a hamster carrier?" Reagan’s pragmatism was a cold, bitter anchor. "They'll think we're on drugs. They'll lock us up."

CRACK!

The sound was louder this time. A new, spiderwebbing fracture raced up the side of the plastic tub. The creature within hissed, a sound of triumph.

Fear, pure and undiluted, finally broke through Nikki’s frantic search for a rational solution. Her eyes were locked on the container. "It's getting out," she whispered.

"We have to move it," Reagan decided instantly. "The reptile quarantine tank. It's thick glass. It can't melt through glass."

It was a terrible idea, born of desperation. The tank was on a high shelf on the other side of the stockroom. But it was the only idea they had. "Help me," Reagan ordered, gesturing at the tub.

Nikki, pale and trembling, shook her head. "I can't. I can't touch it, Reagan."

"Just… just grab a dustpan or something! We'll slide it on!"

As Reagan turned to look for something, anything to use, Nikki took another shaky step backward. Her heel caught the leg of a shelving unit. With a cry of alarm, she flailed, her arms windmilling. Her hand shot out, connecting with the cracked container.

The impact was tragically gentle, but it was enough. The tub tumbled onto its side, landing with a final, definitive CRUNCH. A large piece of the plastic shell broke away, clattering to the floor. The prison was breached.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the monster that was Butters crawled slowly out of the wreckage. It was free.

The two women were frozen for a second, two statues of terror in the dim light of the stockroom. Then the spell broke.

"RUN!" Reagan screamed.

They scrambled away, climbing over pallets of cat litter and stacks of pet beds. It was a chaotic, clumsy retreat. The stockroom, once a place of mundane work, had become a deadly obstacle course. The creature was shockingly fast, skittering across the concrete floor like a drop of venomous oil. It darted under a shelving unit, disappearing into the shadows.

"The door, Nikki, the door!" Reagan yelled, clambering over a pyramid of canned dog food.

Nikki was already there, fumbling with the heavy steel handle. Reagan half-climbed, half-fell over a low cart, her ankle twisting. She hit the floor hard, pain shooting up her leg. She looked up just in time to see a flash of black fur and green slime dart out from under the shelf, heading straight for her.

She crab-walked backward frantically, her palms scraping on the rough concrete. The monster was closing the distance, hissing, its milky eyes fixed on her. It was feet away. Inches.

Nikki finally wrenched the heavy door open. "Reagan, come on!"

Reagan pushed herself up, ignoring the fire in her ankle, and threw herself toward the opening. As she scrambled through the doorway, she felt a sudden, fleeting sensation on the exposed skin of her lower back where her polo shirt had ridden up. It was a flick of wet heat, so fast, so slight, it was like being touched by a single, hot raindrop.

She stumbled into the main store, and together, she and Nikki slammed the steel door shut, throwing the heavy deadbolt. The click echoed in the sudden, cavernous silence of the Petropolis sales floor.

They leaned against the door, chests heaving, sucking in air that didn't taste of dust and death. They were safe. The monster was trapped.

For a long moment, they just stared at each other, their faces identical masks of disbelief and horror. The store's cheerful jingle started playing again, a surreal soundtrack to their nightmare.

Reagan straightened up, her body trembling with leftover adrenaline. The pain in her ankle was a dull throb. But it wasn't the ankle she was thinking about. Her mind was replaying that final, frantic second of escape. The stumble. The monster's path. That fleeting, damp heat on her skin.

It was probably nothing. A splash of water from a leaky fish tank, maybe. Sweat. Anything.

But as she stood there, the cold dread coiling in her stomach was worse than anything she'd felt in the car, worse even than seeing the creature crawl free. A terrifying, unspoken question began to burn in her mind, a quiet, acidic whisper of its own.

Did it touch me?