"Attention! This is an important government warning." The newscaster's face was ashen, his always perfect hair looked like he'd run his fingers through it one too many times.

"An even of unknown origin has begun, we are unsure if this threat has spread out to other parts of the world yet. In order to guarantee your safety you MUST perform the following actions. Failing to follow these actions WILL result in loss of life."

A list of DO'S and DON'T'S flashed on the screen as he read them out one by one.

- Open all doors (external and internal)

- Open all windows

- Do not attempt by any means to bar entry

- When they enter, do not move, look at or acknowledge their presence in any way

- Do not react. Do not talk or make any loud sounds

- Small children, otherwise impaired individuals, and pets you cannot keep from reacting should be abandoned or hid away immediately

- Repeat, do not react. Do NOT react

- Stay calm

The newscaster's voice seeped through my slowly rising fear. "Help will be on the way. Good luck."

For four long months, we had been scorching in an unnatural summer. The clock on the wall read 2:15 pm, it was at that moment that something blocked out the sun and the sucked out the heat. Summer faded and a horrible chill filled the house. That's when we heard the sound, a dull thumping paired with the sound of wings flapping, like a million bats, getting closer.

The noise jackhammered me into action; the words from the screen burning in my eyes long after it blipped off.

Open the doors and the windows. No sounds, no moving. Abandon or hide any small child, impaired persons or animals. Do not bar entry.

They – whatever they were – were getting closer. A thump made the floor tremble.

"Doors, windows," I said, racing through the ranch-style house, flinging doors wide and yanking the windows up. I smashed one that was stuck. My breath frosted on the shards hanging from the sash. It wasn't just cold, it was freezing all of a sudden.

It never occurred to me to doubt, not with the buzzing of wings growing louder, or the dread lancing at my chest. For a minute, it didn't occur to me to disobey any of the rules, either.

Abandon or hide away any small child, animal or impaired person.

Dixie Bell stared at me with her golden-brown eyes, honey locks and wet nose nodding up and down as she paced nervously. I had enough room to hide only one family member.

Abandon...screw that.

"Come girl," I said, running through the living room to the kitchen. The noise bombarded my head and I couldn't think clearly. The thumps got louder and more violent, the flapping was becoming a nerve-grating buzzing and the crying....

My dad leaned over his radio – a technological wonder of metal boxes, lights and knobs from a bygone era – adjusting the frequency and pressing the PTT button, and repeating his call sign.

"Not now, old man," I said. Digging through a cupboard for the dog biscuits and the honey, I realized I had forgotten both the side door and garage door. Last ones.

My dad threw the mic on the table and started tapping short and long clicks with the Morse keyer. C...Q...D...The distress call for emergencies. At least he noticed.

"Dad, please stop," I said. Dixie shook her bottom and whined. She knew something was wrong, but I was holding her biscuit.

C...Q...D...

"Dad," I said. He ignored me. "Dad!"

I grabbed his arm to force him to look at me. The buzzing was turning into a freight train. I had taken refuge in a bank once when a tornado ripped through town. And by ripped, I mean flattened half the houses and stripped the bark from the trees. That was me at this very moment.

I was a tree and the tornado was about to strip my skin from my body and leave me to die in agony. This family, my external shell, was my life. But I didn't know if they would let me protect them.

"Sergeant Williams, this is an order! You will sit still and remain silent. You will not move or react not matter what comes through that door. Do you understand?"

My dad flattened his hands on the table, a flush creeping up his neck. "And who the hell are you to give me orders?"

"I'm—" I'm Mia. I'm your daughter and you are and always have been the greatest, bravest dad a girl ever had. "I'm your commanding officer and we have a situation. We must exercise extreme caution. Do not move, speak or react. Do you understand?" I was yelling over the noise from outside and wailing from next to the table. Wailing I was refusing to deal with up to now.

Abandon or hide away....

"Sergeant Williams, do you understand?"

He nodded curtly, furious. In another life, I would have been terrified of his anger. I would have been incapable of telling him what to do.

"Early onset dementia," the doctor had said.

"Dementia, like Alzheimer's?" It wasn't possible. Early or not my dad was only fifty-five. "Is it because of his deployment in the desert?" I had asked.

"It could be caused by many things, and we'll have to run more tests to determine what we are looking at."

But that had been before the summer heat came in February, and hell had crawled its way to the surface of the Earth.

Now to deal with the crying. I hastily opened the jar of honey and dipped a pacifier in the sweet stickiness inside. Not something I ever did. I scooped the wriggling body of my precious baby boy in my arms.

"Shhhh, shhhhhh. It's okay, Cooper. Shhhh," I said, wedging the honey coated pacifier in his mouth. He cried around it for a second, but finally noticed the taste. He sucked at it frantically, swiping at his ears because of the noise.

At a little over a year, he was a bomb of energy, given to kicking and waving wildly even when he was calm. I gathered up all his blankets and stuffed animals to keep him warm in the sudden cold and happy.

I would carve out my own heart with a scalpel and throw it in the trash before I abandoned my baby. I got more honey on my finger and into his mouth as I lowered him into the food reserves hiding spot under the kitchen floor. There was plenty of room for him. I gave him his creature comforts and kissed his pudgy cheek. I wouldn't cry. No time for weakness, Private Mia.

I set the trap door in place where it fit flush to the flooring. Whatever they were, they wouldn't know it was a door. The buzzing raised in pitch and another thump shook the house so much, the furniture rattled.

Silence arrived as quickly as the noise had started. Cooper quieted in his dark space.

I held the dog treat in the air. "Sit," I told Dixie Bell. "Good girl. Focus." She dropped to her haunches and fixed her adoring eyes on me and only me. Although I could tell she was aware when I set the biscuit on the table. "Stay."

I sat opposite my dad.

"Do not move, speak or react," I whispered in the unnatural hush.

I had positioned my chair to see my dad, the kitchen and the grey-green slivers of the outside world through the garage and front door. They were coming every nerve ending told me. The wait wasn't long

Black shadows separated from the lighter shadows and drifted towards the next door neighbor's house.

Several more were barely visible through the garage door on the opposite side of the street. They went in a house.

Dixie Bell whined and followed my gaze.

"Focus," I said through my teeth, hand on her treat.

"Damn internet killed the radio," my dad said in a normal voice.

"Silence," I whispered. "No speaking. No reactions."

Soft bumping came from the secret compartment. Quiet, please, Cooper. Stay quiet.

"Can't pick up any signals, get anyone to help," my dad muttered. "Where's our reinforcement?"

"Silence," I said. Shadows entered the house across the street.

Loss of life....Abandon any small children, animals or impaired individuals. I'd be damned before I abandon any of my family. And damned if I didn't at least try to save them. I wouldn't stand helpless in the storm and lose everything I loved.

A distant pop, pop broke the quiet. I startled in my seat. Screaming. The neighbors across the street. I could see the house. More screams from different throats. Another pop of a gun firing. They had three kids. The screaming continued and then echoed from a different house. Next door? No more guns shots. Just screaming on and on until it strangled to a halt.

A shadow appeared at my door. A second one flowed towards the garage.

Oh, sweet angels in heaven, where are you to protect us from these demons? Where are you when we need you the most?

Those dark things were at my doorstep – no, they were coming into my house.

Do not react. Do not move. Do not scream, Mia. I held my father's gaze, watching only from the corners of eyes.

Smokey tendrils snaked out as dozens of sorts of arms and legs and each was tipped with a viciously barbed point. Their changing, shifting jaws were lined with knife-like teeth that constantly bit at the air as though eager to shred any living creature they found. Several hollow eye sockets shone with a non-light. That was the only way to describe it.

They moved through the house almost as if they were swimming, scraping their sharp points on walls and furniture. Tiny clicks sounded whenever they touched hard surfaces and the flapping repeated when their appendages shifted to keep moving.

Dixie Bell trembled. She didn't understand, but she sensed our fear.

"Stay," I breathed, barely motioning to her biscuit. If they had been human intruders, she would have gone berserk already. But these were otherworldly monsters beyond her comprehension.

They were beyond mine, too. My brain reeled and I had to keep repeating the rules. I was following orders, as I had been raised to do, or as much as possible. The things finished inspecting the rest of the house and came back towards us.

I thought at first they were black and ashen grey, but the closer they came the more the light played on their strange bodies. They weren't so much black, as some other color or colors that my eyes couldn't see. Non-color like the non-light in the holes in their head which I assumed were eyes. They seemed tattered and torn. Ancient and unfathomable.

The smaller one left by the front door, leaving the larger one to check the kitchen. It paused, filling the room with the smell of burnt hair.

Oh, God, please don't let anyone move.

Its semi-transparent arms rippled through the space, barbed points clicking on the wooden table, metal radio, then scraping softly over cloth and skin.

Do. Not. React.

A jagged nail scratched a line from my forehead to my chin.

Dixie Bell whined. But worse, a muffled bumping came from under the floor. Cooper whimpered, hollow and distant, and another, louder bump.

It jerked into action, scratching and feeling along the cabinets, floors, faucet and stove. The eye holes glowed brighter.

I tensed, ready to stand. I would die with my baby if it came to that, but first, I would try to save him.

The thing's sharp nails found the crack of the trap door.

I began to stand.

"Who the hell do you think you are, coming into my house?" my dad shouted, jumping to his feet. His chair flew back and Dixie Bell was in front of him, barking like mad.

The shadow monster reached for my dad, who stepped backwards.

"This," he said, motioning, "this is my house. Get out!"

The thing advanced. Dixie Bell lunged forward, but as soon as she moved, barbed points imbedded themselves in her fur and eyes.

Do not react, my mind repeated numbly.

The golden retriever howled in pain and snapped uselessly at the arms. The thing pulled its points free, bringing flesh, guts and blood out. Dixie Bell collapsed.

My hand was still on her biscuit. My orders to my dad clear in my head. How had this happened? My whole life was unravelling in an instant.

"Get out!" my dad yelled over Cooper's cries. "This is my house. My house!" He was walking backwards into the living room, the horrifying monster flowing slowly after him.

He kept yelling and gesturing; I couldn't even understand what he was saying. I couldn't move or help. I had tried so hard to save my family and that thing was hunting my dad down to kill him like he had killed my dog.

Do not react. Do not react. There was still Cooper.

The thing followed my dad to the front door and onto the lawn.

I hit the floor, scrabbling to find the catch to open the trap door. I lifted Cooper and held him to my chest.

My dad screamed. He screamed and screamed and I put honey in Cooper's wet mouth and clutched him to my breast and he sucked at my finger in confusion and my dad was screaming in more pain than I imagined was possible until a rip made him go silent.

Cooper was calm, but sniffling in my arms. I was standing at the table, reaching for more honey. There was movement from the lawn. The thing was hovering at the threshold. Its arms crawled along the doorway and onto the walls.

I froze, my pinky finger in Cooper's mouth and his sweet, chubby body cuddled against mine. It was coming back for us. It remembered the noises or had seen us move.

Please, I begged silently. Send me an angel now. Don't let this thing kill my baby.

The thing drifted closer, barbs ticking on the linoleum and then table top. It touched the radio.

Please.

Cooper whimpered and waved his hand to pat my face.

The monster reached for us, its hideous jaws chewing. Tattered, shadowy flaps undulated in invisible drafts, the non-color of its body registering only as darkness. I tried not to look. Bloodied points floated an inch from Cooper and me.

Cooper wiggled and kicked.

If there is an angel out there; please come. I lowered my face to my baby's, salty tears freezing on their way to my chin.

The thing shivered in place, spreading wider, barbs glistening and the burned hair stench sucking the oxygen from the room.

More clicking and scraping sounded from the front door. Two more monsters had arrived.

The thing spun about and clacked its jaws at them in a series of rhythmic snaps until the other two withdrew.

Still facing the other way, the thing scratched the Morse keyer.

Dit...

Dit...dah... Two short ones and a long tap.

Cooper stilled to listen attentively; he loved the electronic clicks.

Dah-di-dah-dit. C

Dah-dah-di-dah. Q

The seeking code.

M...I...A...

It tapped my name.

Done, it drifted to the door and out of the house, not pausing at my dad's mangled body. Dark shadows joined it. A great boom shook the house and the high pitched buzzing and then flapping resumed. The monsters were on the move to continue their path of death.

But an angel had covered Cooper and me with his wings.

The clock said 2:26, but it couldn't have been eleven minutes that had passed. I knelt, crying at my dad's side while his blood congealed in the deep cracks of parched earth. The natural light and warmth of the sun returning bit by bit.

My dad had always been there to protect me – from the dark, from the monsters, and from myself when I made decisions from the heart and not the head.

Later, I would hear a handful stories similar to my own. A Reaper, as they came to be known, would suddenly spare and even protect the loved ones of a person it had killed.

During their strike against our world they had done worse than simply flatten lives and strip the skin from our hearts. As a society, we were decimated. Crippled with mourning and shocked to our cores with our own vulnerability, we transformed into a much different race than we were before the Reapers came.

But I knew that the souls who left with those demons would protect us from a second culling. My hero, my guardian angel was in the sky, watching.

*** Third entry in the Glamour of the Grotesque contest! I hope you enjoyed it. The prompt at the beginning appears in bold. ***