Skull Crawler Novels & Stories

"It's the only way to drive the Sucrose Zombies away." Lia nodded. He started swinging his crowbar against the wall. CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! The sound of metal slamming into concrete echoed through the narrow tunnel. Dust rained down, and the cracks in the wall grew wider. "Hurry, Lia!" Bima urged. Suddenly, from the darkness ahead, came a rapid scratching sound. Then glowing red eyes, dozens of tiny points, emerged from the gloom. Shadow Crawlers. "Damn it! They're coming!" Bima growled, gripping his flare gun.

I wanted to watch Bradley’s reaction as Hex devoured them, their screams filling the room, and their blood creating puddles on the cement ground. Hex was typically a small man who looks harmless, but he was a special breed of puca. He could shapeshift into anything, and my personal favorite was the wendigo; An eight feet tall creature, if his back weren’t hunched he would hit the ceiling of the garage, he had nothing but bones and flesh with patches of black and brown fur here and there, horns like a woodland animal, his face was skeletal, and if he weren’t too busy eating the humans, I would have almost called him cute.

Through the spray of the water, I saw the first of the Skarn pull itself from the earth. It was horrifying. It looked like a massive, subterranean centipede, the size of a transit bus. Its body was segmented with thick, jagged plates of black volcanic glass, and its multi-jointed legs stabbed into the soft earth like steel pistons. It had no eyes, only a massive, circular maw lined with rows of crystalline teeth spinning like a drill bit. The creature let out a deafening, vibrating hiss, its mandibles snapping blindly toward the nearest human triage tent.

Rem demanded to know, his breathing ragged. I pointed a trembling finger towards the bed. “Under the pillow,” I stammered. He didn’t hesitate; Rem flipped the pillow, and he recoiled at the sight of the venomous creature skittering across the sheets. “Shit,” Conner breathed. “That’s a crawler. Those things are lethal.”

Royce adds just as I see lightning flash in the sky, followed by Skyla’s intense aura, but I hear the shrieks of a new wave of crawlers. “Something is really wrong though. He’s coughing up a lot of blood! Fuck, where are they coming from?!” Skyla shouts as the ground rumbles and I’m thrown off my feet, stumbling as I hit the ground. I jump to my feet again quickly. “To your left, Alejandro,” Royce warns. The crawlers are forming ranks, as if silently deciding the best way to destroy us all. “That’s an army of intelligent warriors,” Dante murmurs. The ominous chill at his words makes my stomach churn as I slice through another crawler with my sword.

Deep in the dark places where no one cares to look, Warren felt like he belonged with the Laughing skulls. The roar of the engines and the camaraderie poke at his need to be accepted by other humans. He knew better, of course. The Laughing Skulls lived to spread their message of hate, and it made the teen sick to his stomach.

But she could tell that the people around her had shifted into their wolf forms. Their groans, low growls, and howls that she heard confirmed that. She tried walking but something struck her toe in pain and she fell down to the cold and wet ground, moaning in agony. She wanted to cry out for help but she knew that the quest had begun and everyone was for themselves. Thunder immediately rippled in the air and the night crawlers started to make themselves known. Night crawlers were creatures that dwelt in darkness, they were flesh-eating monsters that had no mercy and saw fear and anything related to it as entertainment.

A shriek that rakes the marrow from my bones, bending the horizon like a blade. I spin toward the sound— And freeze. They’re crawling out of the cracks. Dozens of them. Then hundreds. Things made of bone and void, their limbs bent at angles that make my stomach lurch. Skin stretched too thin over frames too long. Empty sockets burning with something not-fire, not-shadow—just hunger. Their claws scrape against the broken glass of the plain as they drag themselves free, one after another, their mouths yawning wide enough to split their skulls. Gods.

In the center of the jungle stood the Cradle-Node, a structure resembling a giant wolf's skull carved from a single diamond. "Kael, look," Elara pointed toward the horizon. The sky was already darkening. The Hunger-Prime hadn't sent a wolf this time. They had sent a Storm. A wall of entropic nanites, miles high, rolled across the planet, reducing the obsidian towers to nothing.

I helped them only. Taken minutes. One after another, the deceased ranks crawled to Floor. Suddenly I felt a vibration through the thick soles of my boots. “Jada! Move from above!” Nova cried through the Com-Link. I ripped my head up. Dozens of smaller, anal creatures down – the brunt of the parasite. They had muds full razor-sharp teeth and eyes that glowed in a sick yellow. WUMMP! WUMMP! Kael's rifle spitted super-cavitation projectile. The water around us