08 Mar Rain of Fire

Posted at 11:00h in Strange and Unexplained by CreepypastaStories.com 0 Comments

📅 Published on March 8, 2022

“Rain of Fire”

Written by Chisto Healy
Edited by Craig Groshek and Seth Paul
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on CreepypastaStories.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed, adapted to film, television or audio mediums, republished in a print or electronic book, reposted on any other website, blog, or online platform, or otherwise monetized without the express written consent of its author(s).

🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 16 minutes

Rating: 10.00/10. From 1 vote.

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Randy’s eyes darted from the television news broadcast to the actual horror happening outside his window. The voice of the newscaster said, “Major cities all around the globe,” as Randy watched flaming rocks rain from the sky. Before his eyes, they pounded cars into nothing or landed smoldering in the street, so the cars full of intended escapees had to swerve at the last second and wound up smashing into each other or a nearby building. The night air was filled with the sounds of crashes and explosions mixed with a symphony of screams. People were running, fleeing, trying to get out, trying to get to their families, begging for help and swearing it was the end of everything. Randy wondered if it was.

Apparently it was happening everywhere. Out of seemingly nowhere, in some kind of bizarre natural disaster, the sky just started raining, pelting the earth with chunks of flaming rocks. It was peculiar because no one saw it coming, not the astronomers, scientists or NASA. No one. No one advertised it and told the people to go outside at a certain time to see the meteor shower or asteroid rain or whatever it was that was actually happening. Randy’s tablet lying on the table before him showed various streamers talking about conspiracy theories. Randy didn’t know what to think. He just knew what he saw happening outside.

One minute, people like Randy were trying to figure out how to get back to some semblance of normalcy in this world full of civil unrest. The next minute, flaming rocks were destroying everything, and terrified people were killing each other and themselves. Panic was a brutal and ruthless monster. That’s why Randy was up here with his devices, safely watching from his apartment window as social media influencers took the risks for him.

The screaming zealots outside shouted that we were under attack, either from a vengeful God, a political rival or an alien race. Randy supposed that any one of them could be right, and they may never know. A panicked racist with a megaphone blaming it all on China was silenced right before Randy’s eyes as a smoldering boulder crushed the bread truck he’d been standing on to preach. Randy didn’t think this was the work of another country. One trip to Facebook or Twitter showed him that those other countries were being hit just like here. Whatever this was, it was global.

Randy had just moved here for work, taking on the big city, and leaving his family back in rural Ohio. He was supposed to be a big shot, working for a primetime television show. It was a huge step towards achieving his dreams of one day writing and directing movies. He had a feeling that none of that was going to matter anymore.

Randy was trapped, alone, half a day away from everyone he loved as the sky rained fire down upon them. He could hear the wind-whipped flames roaring outside his window as the world burned. From where he stood, it definitely seemed like God was pissed. It had seemed that way since the beginning of 2020 when COVID hit, but fire raining from the sky took the cake, in his opinion. Randy just hoped the big guy was feeling forgiving by the time all these souls reached him. People were dying by the second all over the world. It made him wonder if it was possible for Heaven to reach capacity. Sorry folks, we’ve got no choice but to send you to hell. We’re all filled up.

Randy had tried to call home when the assault began, but there was no answer. He tried the landline as well as each individual cell and couldn’t get a hold of anyone. He told himself that his parents were fine and he would hear from them in time. Time would tell. A friend from college had messaged him earlier to check in. He saw a girl from his old high school video her smashed car in the driveway on TikTok. His best friend, Mike and his boyfriend, Brian, were broadcasting live on Twitch, keeping their followers up to date, so Randy knew they were okay, at least for the time being. Outside of his window, a woman was screaming, “My baby! I can’t find my baby!” Randy shivered and imagined the child trapped somewhere, flames crackling around them as they cried. He said a silent prayer that they were found and reunited with their family, but one look out the window made him question whether or not God was even listening.

All around, people were still evacuating their homes and attempting to flee. Where did they think they were going to go? If it was happening everywhere, they were all just leaving it to head into it again, if they even made it anywhere before getting crushed or burned or run over. Randy couldn’t help but laugh cynically at their honking horns and shouts at each other to move. It felt much safer to him to stay put, and he intended to do just that.

Randy had a bottle of Jameson whiskey – well, half a bottle – and the burn it delivered to his chest was comforting, soothing amid the chaos. If he was really smart, Randy thought, as he sipped out of a novelty shot glass with his TV show’s logo on it, he would stay away from the window. That’s what they always said about hurricanes and tornadoes, right? It probably applied to raining fire as well.

Randy had flinched and jumped back about an hour ago when one of the rocks came crashing through a building across the street. It went through the window and the wall around it like a flaming wrecking ball. Instead of a crooning Miley Cyrus, there were screams of terror and agony as the fire spread quickly to the other apartments. The floor crashed through right before his watching eyes, and people fell from the building into the street below, like lemmings running off of a cliff in single file lines. Randy watched in absolute horror as they died, and yet an hour later, he was still staring out his window at the carnage, the wreckage across the street a constant reminder that the same could happen to him. But how could he not look?

Randy’s bladder was not at all concerned with what was going on outside, and his body begged him for a trip to the toilet. It was strange to think that the little everyday things were still present even in a world-ending crisis. Car horns and alarms were simultaneously screaming outside like competing heavy metal bands over the backbeat of gunfire and crackling flames. This might very well be the end of the world, but you still had to eat, piss, shit, and sleep, and Randy appreciated that. Constants were good in a crisis situation. They helped keep you grounded. The happenings outside showed exactly what panic got you. New screams rang out each moment and then died off as people got run over, killed in wrecks of steam and twisted metal or wound up crushed by falling rocks. Many wound up trapped and burned in the rocks’ accompanying flames.

Randy left the apocalypse outside his apartment window and walked to the other room to answer nature’s call. He was standing there urinating when the entire apartment shook. There was the loudest bang he had ever heard, and everything went suddenly dark. Randy felt the fact that he lost his balance and missed the bowl was probably the least of his problems. One of those rocks must have just paid him a visit and made a house call. He had no idea how bad the damage was, but he knew he needed to find out, so he finished his business and then stepped out into his dark apartment as he worked on zipping his fly. The apartment wasn’t lit up by white-hot crackling flames, and there was no giant hole in the floor as far as he could tell, so that was a good sign.

Things sounded different, though. The voices on his devices had stopped reporting and gone silent. There were still people screaming outside and car horns blaring; still the crackle of flames, but there were no more crashes and booms, bottle rocket style searing whistles of sailing rocks. Was it over?

As Randy stood there in the dark, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had been right to stay inside and he had just survived something that killed thousands, millions probably. He stood where he was and looked towards the window, and he waited. He was holding his breath, his heart racing. Time ticked by. Nothing more came. Some of the screams outside were replaced with crying and calls for help. He’d reached the aftermath, the rescue and recovery time, disaster averted. Randy couldn’t believe it. It felt surreal.

Randy told himself that it was time to go outside now, to help the people that were trapped or hurt. He had waited smartly until the rain was over. Now he had to do his part to rebuild and keep the world going. He turned and walked to his front door, stumbling in the dark and stubbing his toe. Randy cussed and pulled the door open. Then his mouth opened just the same.

His neighbor’s apartment was completely gone. One of those boulders was sitting in its place, flames still smoldering on its surface, crackling in the wind from the torn ceiling where it had come through. Randy’s eyes took in the red cratered ball of rock that stood before him. Just a few feet over, and he would have been crushed by that thing. Had his neighbor been home as well, or had she been outside screaming with the rest? Staying in didn’t save everyone, it seemed, but it had saved him, and for that he was thankful.

Randy stepped out into the hall. It was so strange to see the stars and constellations from inside your building. Moonlight lit the powerless floor with a dim glow like the world’s biggest night light. It was almost pretty in a twisted way.

Randy watched as the flames died down on the giant rock, and the hallway got progressively darker. Maybe his cell phone wasn’t good for calling his family, but it was still a flashlight. He closed his social media tabs out and turned the light on. Randy was afraid to step out onto the floor. He feared it would give way underneath his weight, as damaged as it was. In his mind, he saw the building across the street again, the way it collapsed and the people that just came sliding out like Hot Wheels on a racetrack. It was a fate he wanted to avoid.

Randy stepped out cautiously with his toes and tested the floor, putting more and more weight down, his breath caught in his chest. It seemed okay as far as he could tell. He took a deep breath and stepped out further. Treading carefully, he skirted the broken floor and headed for the stairwell. Then he heard something crunch and crack from off to his side. Randy angled his flashlight and slowly turned his head to face the giant rock.

The rock was chipping and breaking, lining with cracks that spread out like strikes of lightning. Pieces were crumbling and falling away. Randy stood frozen in the broken hall, staring at the strange thing, wondering what he was witnessing. Fear gripped his heart and nailed his feet to the floor. He stopped breathing entirely.

As the rock broke away in small bits, Randy saw glowing yellow eyes staring at him from the darkness within. Oh no. No. The rocks weren’t rocks at all. They were eggs, and they were hatching. This was so bad, and Randy was left feeling a little of everyone else’s collective panic. Screams and shrieks of terror rang out from the street outside, and reality dawned on him. It was happening everywhere. They were all hatching at once. All over the world, whatever was inside these things was now being born. There had to be millions of them. After the way they arrived, Randy couldn’t imagine they would be docile and friendly.

He didn’t want to be there when whatever was in the rock finally broke loose and tasted freedom, so he took off at a sprint, no longer worried about whether the floor would support his weight or not. He decided he would rather face the fall than whatever was coming.

Randy ran to the stairs and started down, but then he stopped. He was running from the one thing inside the building with him, but he was running towards the street where there had to be a hundred more. He could hear the screams and carnage rising anew outside. It sounded even worse than it had before, more violent, brutal. Running downstairs and out to the street felt like certain death. He needed a plan B.

Randy turned around and ran up instead. The rain was over; it seemed so higher ground felt like the safest bet. He took the stairs all the way to the roof.

Randy pushed through the door and came out into the open air of the night. It was thick with smoke and smelled like a giant campfire, which sickeningly was cooking meat. He didn’t want to spend time thinking about what that meant. He just covered his nose and mouth with the crook of his elbow.

Randy quickly shut the door behind him with a kick. Then he looked around for something that would help him keep it closed. He spotted a torn pipe shooting steam, and he ran to it. Gritting his teeth, Randy pulled at the flayed metal until a broken chunk came off. Then he ran quickly back to the door and wedged it underneath to hold the door shut. He kicked it to jam it in further. When he did, something hit the door from the other side, hard. He wasn’t expecting it, and he jumped with a start.

Randy fell backward onto his bottom. His chest seized. He couldn’t breathe. He stared at the door. Seconds ticked by that felt like hours. He looked over his shoulder and realized just how close he was to the edge of the hole that the rock had made on its way into the building. It went down several floors to his own. He pulled away from the hole and looked back at the door.

Nothing.

Sighing with relief, Randy got to his feet. The door jumped again as something slammed into it from the other side once more, and Randy jumped with it, almost slipping into the enormous hole before him as he gasped out loud. “Damn it. Come on.”

The door wasn’t going to hold for long. His eyes went to the metal at the bottom. It was already starting to come out. So much for that idea. Randy’s heart was thundering in his chest. He had no idea what plan C was.

Randy stepped carefully and ran around the hole to the edge of the roof where he could look out at the city beyond his building. Hope drained from him like the color from his face. Those things were everywhere. They looked like some kind of a hybrid, a cross between a human being and a lizard, but they crouched and hunched on thick muscled arms like an ape. Their hands were all razor-sharp talons, and their alligator-like jaw was lined with jagged teeth. They bounded over cars and leaped onto them, jumping and climbing over everything with frightening ease. Randy watched as they pounced on fleeing people, ripping at them and biting them. People were screaming and running in every direction, trying to climb over the wrecked cars and the debris that blocked the streets. None of them were quick enough to survive the onslaught.

Randy turned in a circle. He looked in every direction. Everywhere he looked, it was more of the same. If it was like this all over the world, then the human race didn’t stand a chance. The zealots had been right after all, it seemed. This was, in fact, the end of everything. It was indeed an attack, a planned attack that we didn’t see coming, an attack we couldn’t win without preparation. It was genius and terrifyingly beautiful to witness in a sick, depressing kind of way. It was a shame there wouldn’t be anyone for Randy to tell what he saw by the time it was all over.

Randy thought about his family out on the farm. He wondered if maybe they were safer out there. It was a lot more open, and his dad had plenty of guns to defend them with. He started to wish he was with them, that he could at least fight and die by their side. He wished that he had never left. What did his fancy job or bigger paycheck mean now? Absolutely nothing. Our entire way of life was a made-up construct. It was all futile and insignificant and pointless. This was the sad truth that came to him way too late.

Randy heard that thing slam into the door again behind him, and he had just seen with his own eyes what they could do to people in just a matter of seconds. The other buildings were too far to jump to. He would never make it. The hole in the roof was too big and went too far down. If he jumped back down to his own floor, the fall alone would kill him. He had to go over the edge of the building. It was the only available option, even though it seemed insane.

With a silent prayer, Randy eased himself over the edge. Gripping the roof with his fingertips, he lowered himself down, trembling with nervous tension. His toes were knocking against a window. He wondered if he broke it, if he could swing in, or if he would just fall to his death. He wasn’t a cinematic action hero like the one on the show he wrote for. Above him, the creature slammed against the door again with a ferocious bang. Metal screamed and groaned.

Down below, Randy could hear the guttural moan and low clicking sounds of the creatures on the hunt for prey, stalking survivors. Randy decided he had to try. If he missed and fell, it would still be better than the alternative. He kicked his legs at the window. On the second try, the glass broke inward. One of his hands came loose, and he gasped. Death was so close that he could have sworn he felt the reaper’s fingertips graze his pale cheek. It was most likely the rush of cold wind as he swung loose from the roof, but fear had a way of distorting things.

Randy heard the door crash open on the rooftop. There was no more time. He just hoped if he didn’t make it into the window that the fall would kill him before those things got to him. It would be so horribly unfair if the fall just maimed him and left him to the jaws of those monsters stalking below.

With a two-handed grip once more, he swung himself at the window. He swung a couple of times to gain momentum, and then he let go. His legs went through the opening, but he landed with his back on the sill, broken glass stabbing and cutting at him. Randy groaned in pain. He was hanging half out of the window, staring down at the street below, gripped by terror as he watched the monsters running and jumping, searching for survivors with frightening calculation. His back burned and felt wet with blood as he listened to the monsters communicate through a series of clicks and snorts.

Randy could see from where he lay how far the drop down really was. He didn’t know if it was his imagination or if the monsters below really seemed to sense him somehow. They pooled together at the base of the building, clicking and moaning and looking around frantically, their elongated jaws snapping at the air. Maybe they could smell him with their reptilian snouts. Randy knew that he needed to get inside before they discovered where the scent was coming from and came in after him. Could they climb? He didn’t want to find out.

Randy rose like he was doing a sit-up. The glass dug into his back as he moved and strained to lift himself. He grit his teeth against the pain of the lancing shards, but he tried not to make any sound. Then he was high enough to look up and saw the glowing yellow eyes peering back down at him. The creature that had followed him to the roof was leaning over the edge, staring right at him through the hole in the ceiling. It startled him, and he fell backward. If it hadn’t been for the shards of glass stabbing into his back, he would have fallen out of the window completely. His life was saved by puncture wounds that caused him real agony as he bent backward over them. Maybe it would be his time after all, he thought. Maybe it was everyone’s time.

Randy cried out, and the things below heard it. Their clicking and moaning got louder and more frantic. The thing above him joined in, speaking to its brethren, telling them he’s up here. I’ve got him. At least, that’s what Randy’s panicked imagination told him was being said. He wasn’t fluent in alien monster.

Randy lifted himself again, with a groan and free-flowing tears. The creature above leaned further over the roof, the long jaws snapping at him. Trembling with fear but unwilling to be deterred, Randy pulled himself up into the window and through it into the apartment. He cried out again as he ripped himself away from the glass that was stuck deep into the meat of his lower back. Randy didn’t need to look to know he was bleeding pretty good. He didn’t have time to check the extent of it. He would have to wait until he was somewhere safe if such a place even existed anymore. These things were hunters, and Randy knew that it would double back and track him here if he didn’t get a move on.

The apartment was pitch black. He reached into his pocket for his phone, and it wasn’t there. It must have fallen out when he was hanging from the window. He cursed himself for the mistake and just tried to run for where he thought the door should be. He ran into something and sprawled out onto the floor, cursing as he went down. Every second wasted brought him a second closer to death. His heart thundered in his chest to match the throbbing of the wounded muscles in his back.

Randy bounded to his feet, his back screaming at him as he did. He pushed forward. He ran into something else but growled and moved around it this time without falling. Then his hand found the doorknob. He ripped the door open and ran out into the hall. He ran in the direction of the stairs. If he could get there, he could run down, hide somewhere on a different floor.

He skidded to a halt at the door to the stairwell. He could hear the thing barreling down the stairs towards him, claws clicking on the steps. It was issuing its series of clicks, moans and snorts as it came rushing down in pursuit of him. Randy’s eyes went wide. He turned around and ran, trying every door he passed by, frantically jiggling them. They were all locked. He was crying now, overcome with panic, not wanting to die.

Finally, he grabbed a knob that turned, and Randy pushed the door inward. He threw himself inside but eased the door shut and listened for the click. He didn’t want to make a sound. He knew that thing was close and could probably hear him. He cringed as he gently turned the lock, and it quietly popped into place. The subtle sound felt like a gunshot to him in this moment.

Randy was hoping the monster hadn’t been close enough to see which apartment he went into. He remembered how they could smell him or sense him somehow all the way from the street. He knew the thing in the hall wasn’t going to give up. It wasn’t going to stop hunting him. At least it would have to spend time looking for him. That would buy him some time to think of the next step and come up with a plan of escape.

Randy got down low, wincing at the pain radiating from the still bleeding open wounds in his back, and he tried to quietly crawl through the dark apartment. He felt around him with each step, each movement. He was terrified of bumping into something, knocking over a chair or a lamp, and giving away his position. He knew it would mean his death.

Randy felt a breeze then. He looked in the direction it came from. The door was not the only thing that the tenants had left open. The window was wide, curtains blowing in the breeze. He saw how those things moved, how they jumped and climbed over cars and rubble. He didn’t know if they could scale the side of an entire building, but he didn’t want to assume they couldn’t.

Randy wanted to close the window, to keep them from getting to him that way, but he lived in this building. He knew the windows squealed and screamed when you moved them up or down. It would seal off the way for the things outside, but it wouldn’t matter because the thing already in the building would know exactly where he was. He didn’t like it, but he was just going to have to hope that nothing climbed up and came through it. It was a long way up, after all. He liked his chances better, leaving it open. In his mind, he pictured that thing in the hallway, walking past the many apartment doors, sniffing at the cracks underneath, trying to catch his scent. Randy nervously chewed his fingernail. He couldn’t see the way to the door in the darkness, but he still looked back in that direction.

Randy’s nightmare of a daydream was shattered by the sounds of reality. He heard a low moan followed by a quiet clicking sound just inches away from where he sat, and he realized suddenly that something had already come through that open window. Randy turned his head slowly, his stomach in knots, his heart racing, and he saw two glowing yellow eyes cutting through the darkness to stare back at him. Randy’s scream was abruptly cut short.